Summary

Diabetes app solution in 90 Minutes

This user experience design challenge, to help people with diabetes to track their health integrating wearable technology, was completed rapidly.

To provide value to people with diabetes who use insulin pumps, an easy to understand phone application is needed that:

• provides easy to understand information at the right time

• dictates steps to take, like how much insulin to program

• allows for tracking of many aspects of life, and giving insights based on all of that data

The solution takes readings from glucose readers and insulin pumps together in an application that informs diabetics about steps to take to manage their health overall.

Diabetes Wearables

How might we help diabetics who use insulin pumps to be able to track what’s necessary to manage their diabetes?

An insulin pump replaces the need for injections of insulin.

Using a pump and constantly monitoring blood glucose levels prevents complications like:

• blindness

• kidney disease

• heart disease

• stroke

Older diabetics may have memory or visual problems leading to unreliable record keeping, meaning this solution needs to work for them and/or their caregivers.

• blood glucose levels: trends and frequent checks

• insulin and other medications (including over the counter)

• food intake (macros)

• exercise (increased activity, stress, or illness can change insulin requirements)

• other: blood pressure, weight

• notes about unusual symptoms

Assumptions

A 90 minute challenge means no primary research!

What this means is that apart from the reading about diabetics, I have no other information to go on about the needs, behaviours, and goals of the people that this design would be for. Here are just some of the assumptions being made about these people and all of these would have to be challenged and validated through primary research to bring this project to life.

I assume:

that existing tracking and management options could be improved,

that the learning curve for understanding glucose readings can mean a reduction in care,

that caregivers for children and elderly want an easy way to see what is going on with their loved one,

and that this is a complex tracking system that has a lot of parts that need to work together.

Getting a feel for current behaviour and looking for opportunities.

Proto-Persona

Concerned Cora

Cora is 47 and has type 2 diabetes. She is exhausted by the amount of work it is to track everything. She has a full time job, two kids, and finds that she barely gets time to eat, let alone track all that she needs to in order to maintain good health. She feels like she is guessing about what to input for dosage in her pump, even though she has done so much research about it.

Her goal is to maintain health for herself and feel more confident about her choices related to her insulin pump.

Now let’s go through a scenario with Cora to understand her needs better.

The Story

1. Cora is about to have dinner out with her friends. She takes a glucose reading. She feels self-conscious about pricking her finger at the table and is tired of this process.

2. She gets her glucose reading and she reads, understands, interprets, and predicts her insulin needs based on what she is choosing to eat and drink.

3. Cora then understands what her needs are for a bolus dose of insulin, so she manually programs an insulin dose into her pump. She hopes that this dose is what she will need and since she has never had this food before, it’s hard for her to predict exact needs.

4. She eats and enjoys her time with her friends, but her diabetes needs are always in the back of her mind.

5. After the meal, Cora takes another reading of her blood glucose levels to make sure she is where she needs to be.

6. She takes another reading a few hours later to make sure her levels are being controlled by her insulin pump.

The Opportunity

At step two of the story, when Cora is reading, understanding, interpreting, and predicting her needs to balance her glucose and insulin levels, there is an opportunity to make this easier.

From secondary research, it was revealed that in order to correctly do this phase of the process, there was a high learning curve. It’s not easy to interpret and react to readings. Cora would have had to learn a lot and even go through a stressful trial and error period before she could feel like she always knows what to do. Managing insulin input is not a casual process, often involving math and difficult predictions.

So, it is here that the solution would be most useful for Cora in managing her diabetes and making her feel more confident about her interpretations.

Possible solutions to help Cora manage her insulin levels.

Crazy 8s sketching

Eight ideas in eight minutes:

This exercise is to encourage divergent thinking, to get a bunch of ideas out there no matter how good or bad.

Idea Analysis

This is convergent thinking, where each of these ideas is understood and evaluated for how effective they are at meeting the needs that Cora has.

Reading left to right, top to bottom:

1. Smart pump - would be a touchscreen interface on the pump itself that would allow Cora to track everything on this device and sync with her phone. Cons: this is physically attached to her body, so not the most discrete place to track everything.

2. Smart(er) glucose reader - have everything health related measured and stored in this device. Cons: these devices are already very expensive, so to make it even more complex would up the cost, making it inaccessible to many who need it.

3. Phone application - this would be like many other solutions already on the market, including tracking, reminders, and profiles. The issue that many on the market has is that the information needs to actually be useful to positively change the behaviour of the person using it. It needs to be to help them, not overwhelm them with too many graphs and information.

4. App section that automatically syncs blood sugar and insulin pump readings together. This is the design solution that seems to fit the opportunity the best, and would do the work for Cora so she can go back to her busy life and dinner with friends.

5. Other health tracker integration - by using other health wearables that Cora might have, a clearer picture of her health could come to be. This does not directly address the most pressing needs she has, but would be great for next steps in the project.

6. Apple watch - This is to show the same app screen as number 4 but on an apple watch, it would be a good next step to make depending on what research shows about what devices people have.

7. FAB features - Using a floating action button (Android only), a whole bunch of other tracking options could be available to input if Cora chose to do so.

8. Reminders - this is one of the features that was most liked and used by people who use other diabetes tracking applications. It is a must-have for any application related to this problem space, but is not the core feature that provides the most value.

MEeting Cora’s Needs

If Cora used this application, she would spend less mental capital to get the same or better results in managing her insulin. In this way, she can get back to what really matters to her and worry less about these details. This solution shows Cora what is important, breaks down information for her and does so much work for her.

Ui Development

At the end of this 90 minute challenge, I got to the point of having a clear path for where the solution should go, but need more information to be able to create clear and usable prototype screens. The first next steps of this project are to speak to diabetics to find out what is important for them to be able to make digital wireframes that provide for them adequately.

Research, research, research.

Working Beyond these 90 minutes

In order to validate whether this is a useful approach for people with diabetes who use insulin pumps, more research is needed.

Research for:

• Getting to know people better

  • What pains do they have?

  • What is their current behaviour with managing their health?

  • How can their health monitoring be improved?

  • What is their understanding of what diabetes is?

  • What is needed to educate people about their own health?

  • Which metrics and information are the most useful to be displayed?

• Technological constraints

  • What would it take to allow blood glucose readers and insulin pumps to automatically sync to an external device?

  • What are the risks if this technology malfunctions?

  • Would the makers of these devices need to cooperate?

• Language about diabetes

  • Many solutions on the market right now do not explain readings and information in easy to digest formats, decreasing accessibility.

  • How do people talk about diabetes with their family and doctors?

  • How was diabetes explained to them and how might we make an application that fits into their understanding?

Needed REsources

Access to various stakeholders:

• doctors

• people with diabetes

• glucose meter and insulin pump manufacturers

• technologists and developers capable of making this work