Remembering Sean Hägen, IDSA

IDSA mourns the loss of longstanding member, industry leader, and friend, Sean Hägen, who passed away on February 25, 2023. With over 30 years of research and product development across a variety of industries ranging from luxury yachts to ruggedized electronics and medical devices, Sean leaves behind a legacy in the field of industrial design and IDSA.   

Since founding BlackHägen Design in 1995, Sean led research and usability design projects, in both institutional and home environments, across twenty countries. Sean contributed to usability standards as a contributing author for AAMI TIR 50, 59 and in the revisions of HE75 and IEC 32366. He was the IDSA Medical Section Chair from 2010-2013 and served two terms on the Board of Directors, in addition to serving as the Chair of IDSA’s Patient Safety Taskforce. Sean earned a Bachelor of Science in Product Design from The Ohio State University’s Industrial Design program, minoring in human factors.  

Throughout his illustrious design career, Sean focused on the management of the user research and insight translation phases of product development. That focus included contextual inquiry, usability testing, user-centric innovation, establishing user requirements and user interface design. 

During his time at IDSA, Sean played an instrumental role in developing the organization’s annual Deep Dive events. Now occurring multiple times a year in live and virtual formats, IDSA’s Deep Dives are valuable experiences that draw hundreds of attendees to learn from and interact with top-tier design leaders from around the world. Beginning in 2012 with IDSA’s International Conference in Boston, Sean paved the way for future Deep Dives by developing the conference’s “Medical + Health Design” track. From that point on, Sean worked to create more focused professional-development opportunities for the industrial design community, beginning with IDSA’s Medical Conferences, culminating in the organization’s signature annual Deep Dives.    

As Chair of IDSA’s Patient Safety Taskforce, Sean led organizational efforts to design a strategic plan to enable healthcare service providers to minimize medical error. “We don’t have to boil the ocean,” claimed Sean. “The enormity of the problem is the problem.” As part of this initiative, Sean focused on IDSA’s role to enable change in the greater design community with the awareness, opportunity and tools to make a significant impact on the problem. Click here to view Sean’s IDSA member profile.