The use of radiation to treat cancer is long- and well-established and yet there is still so much more to be done to bring the treatment to more people and more effectively.

Also, the treatment of cancer in general (and within that the use of radiation therapy) is a kind of test bed for ideas on people-centred design … user experiences, user interfaces, artificial intelligence, and more.

Maybe the first challenge comes from the number of different people involved. When we talk of the user experience of radiation therapy (or chemotherapy, or oncology in general) there is that thorny question of ‘which user are we referring to?’ Do we mean the patient and their family, or the doctor (oncologist) responsible for treating them? Or the therapists who will deliver the treatment, or the medical physicists who will develop and / or validate the treatment plan and ensure the machines are running safely.