DIABETES ONE CONNECT
Case study 2020 - 8 weeks project
Integrated solution to keep diabetes type1 under control
01. THE PROBLEM
Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a metabolic disease that causes high blood sugar. The hormone insulin moves sugar from the blood into your cells to be stored or used for energy. With diabetes, your body either doesn't make enough insulin or can't effectively use the insulin it does make.
Type 1 diabetes makes up an estimated 5–10% of all diabetes cases. The number of people affected globally is unknown, although it is estimated that about 80,000 children develop the disease each year. Within the United States the number of people affected is estimated at one to three million. Rates of disease vary widely, with approximately 1 new case per 100,000 per year in East Asia and Latin America and around 30 new cases per 100,000 per year in Scandinavia and Kuwait. It typically begins in children and young adults.
For my project I decided to focus on Diabetic type 1 users that already use a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor). After conducting some interviews, the results were telling me some problems with the current CGM covered by Public Health
INTERVIEWS
Qualitative data
I interviewed 6 people to know more about the pain points of a person living with diabetes. Below are the main insights:
Bolus calculation difficulties (trial and error), specially when I go to restaurants and I am unable to calculate the Carbohydrates in the plate.
Martina
Long hours without eating causes glucose to drop. For example, when I skip a meal I notice the symptoms of the drop.
M. Sanchez
Different daily routines make it more difficult to define a fixed pattern. Hormonal changes cause glucose to skyrocket (menstruation, etc.). Maintaining the same routine (food, insulin, exercise) glucose can vary from day to day.
R. Jiménez
USER PERSONA
JUAN, 34
Diabetic type 1 since he was 14. Active person. Home-office work based but has to attend in-person client meetings. He practices sport on a daily basis and he prefers insulin multiple injections rather than insulin pump, because it is not comfortable when doing sport. He likes eating healthy food to control blood sugar. he uses Abbott freestyle libre to control diabetes.
GOALS
Keep diabetes under control, that means not going above 6.0 of Hb1c%
Keep 100% of glucose in range (between 80 - 160)
Predict peaks of glucose (highs and drops)
Keep using his sensor to monitor his glucose
FRUSTRATIONS
Worried about peaks (highs and drops) and external variables that prevent to keep diabetes under control such as stress, meetings, counting carbohydrates outside home
When going to the gym, he has to adjust his insulin dosis
He hates entering manual data to his existing app (freestyle libre)
03. IDEATION
CONCEPT TESTING
As an MVP, we thought of a tool that would help people with diabetes counting carbohydrates from a picture. We tested the concept with our users
STYLE TILE
Balance, Perseverance, Accuracy
Defining the attributes that will result in the style tile, we chose blue colors, since it is the color of diabetes as a representation of the sky. We chose rounded typography (manrope) as it seems casual and friendly and also the diabetes logo is a circle
04. PROTOTYPE
The final version of the prototype includes the features that solve the problems stated by the users
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