Understanding the Problem

Goal:

Our goal is to design and integrate a decision support tool within the TypeU app that empowers parents to make informed, confident decisions about their child's diabetes care. By engaging with both caregivers and healthcare professionals, we aim to create an inclusive, user-centered solution that reduces stress, enhances trust in digital tools, and ensures timely, effective diabetes management while also alleviating the burden on healthcare providers.

Problem:

Parents and caregivers of newly diagnosed diabetic children face significant emotional and cognitive challenges in managing their child’s health. The complexity of diabetes care, combined with the lack of immediate support post-discharge, can lead to stress, uncertainty, and potential delays in critical decision-making. While digital tools like the TypeU app offer educational resources, many caregivers struggle to trust them over traditional healthcare guidance. Additionally, healthcare professionals experience increased workloads answering common questions that could be addressed through better digital support.

Problem Statement:

How might we design a decision support tool within the TypeU app that reduces the emotional and cognitive load for parents of newly diagnosed diabetic children, fosters trust in digital guidance, and ensures timely, informed decision-making—ultimately easing caregiver stress and minimizing healthcare delays?

Target Users:

Parents with children with diabetes

Child with diabetes

Doctors

Diabetes Educators

Problem Significance:

Reduces Caregiver Stress and Improves Confidence

Supports Healthcare Professionals and Reduces Workload

Research Goals

Educate parents and caregivers to manage T1D effectively beyond the initial diagnosis, focusing on decision-making and emergencies.

Improve sick day management for children with T1D.

Minimize emergency room (ER) visits by equipping parents to handle common T1D complications at home.

Reduce calls to nurse/doctor lines, including questions on insulin dosages, glucose management, and sick day symptoms.

Build parent confidence in managing their child's T1D with clear support and resources.

Literature Review

Goal:

To understand diabetes and explore the existing platforms (apps, websites, tools, etc.), as well as decision-making processes for Type 1 diabetes and managing sick days.

Rationale:

Gain a general understanding of diabetes and how people manage it, including existing platforms (apps, websites, tools, etc.) and decision-making processes for Type 1 diabetes. This information will help inform the development of the app and ensure it addresses key aspects such as managing sick days and improving overall functionality.

Research Questions

What is Type 1 diabetes?

What are the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes?

What are some of the common challenges for people with diabetes?

What are some of the common challenges for caretakers caring for a person with diabetes? Examine decision-making processes in Type 1 diabetes

Learn about managing sick days with Type 1 diabetes

What platforms exist already to manage diabetes?

What features do these platforms have?- How have these platforms been studied?

Context:

Reviewed 12 academic papers around what diabetes is and diabetes management in children

The output of this research method was a formal report document

Findings: 1. T1D decision-making involves a complex balance of monitoring blood glucose levels, managing insulin doses, considering diet and physical activity, and adapting to daily life changes. 2. In humanitarian settings, managing T1DM is further complicated by barriers to insulin access, safe storage, and food insecurity, making glucose management difficult. The care burden on families adds emotional and financial stress, while knowledge gaps and social stigma hinder effective disease management. 3. Managing T1D becomes more challenging from contracting illnesses like colds or flues; your body releases hormones that raise blood glucose levels, making it harder to stay within the target range. 4. Poor diabetes management during illness can escalate into serious conditions such as diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS), both of which require emergency hospital admission.

Competitive Analysis

Goal:

To understand what kinds of platforms exist already and what works well and what does not.

Rationale:

To get a hands-on approach to the various tools that people with diabetes use currently and understand what works well and what does not work as well.

Research Questions:

What platforms exist already to manage diabetes?

What features do these platforms have?

What features do not work as well?

Context:

Compared 11 diabetes management apps on the same set 29 features

Compared 11 diabetes management apps on adventages, disadvantages, and unique features

Review all 11 diabetes management apps app store reviews

Findings:

Most apps feature multiple types of diabetes vs. centering one & tend to cater more to T2D needs

Most apps do not center T1DM or education specifically, and do not consider emotional support

Common positive reviews discussed ability to connect CGM/other diabetic devices to track and log blood sugar and food

Educational aspects in more popular apps tend to be optional and not centered as important app features

TypeU stands out as a T1DM specialty app, source of emotional comfort, BG calculator, and educational app for diabetic care

TypeU shortcomings: lacks capacity to have CGM/diabetic tracking devices, ability to share information with practitioner/print reports

Expert and User Interviews

Goal: Asking deeper questions to understand the challenges, process, and behavioral changes throughout diagnosis and management Rationale: To dive deeper and ask follow-up questions of the users learn more about the challenges, process, and behavioral changes through their diagnosis journey. Additionally, this could provide an opportunity to identify individuals interested in participating in the diary study. Research Questions: What challenges do they face?- What runs smoothly? What do they wish they could change about their diabetes management? How do they adapt their routines and strategies in response to their diagnosis? What additional support or resources do they feel would be beneficial? How do they effectively learn about diabetes management, and how effective do they find these methods? Context: The 45-60 minute remote interviews began with an introduction to set the context. A total of 5 patients and 9 clinicians were interviewed. Participants received a $25 gift voucher for their time. Notes and transcripts were reviewed to create affinity maps.

Findings: Parents

A common mistake and "emergency" parents face is giving long-acting insulin instead of short-acting insulin, and vice versa.

Parents frequently monitor their child's levels remotely using the Dexcom app.

Children with diabetes often have to mature quickly and adjust to a new normal, which strains their mental health and that of their parents.

Parents seek information from various sources and even Google things like carb counts, highlighting the lack of a centralized information hub.

Obtaining insulin can be a barrier, often due to issues with the pharmacy or insurance.

Parents want their child to manage their diabetes independently.

Peer perception influences a child's willingness to use pumps, as they often don't want their friends to know they have diabetes.

Parents are well-connected with their school nurse, who often has extra supplies on hand.

Findings: Experts

Diabetes burnout is common from constant decision-making; frustration can hinder care without complete giving up.

Transportation, insurance issues, and other factors contribute to diabetes burnout

Math can be challenging for calculating carb and insulin bolus.

There is a need to track long-term blood sugar levels.

Moderate to large ketones are often the reason for emergency calls, where parents perceive it as an emergency.

Sometimes kids intentionally or unintentionally misuse insulin (insufficient parent supervision is a problem).

Parents and children can become overly reliant on technology and pumps but may not know what to do if something breaks.

Transportation is a significant barrier for patients needing to get to the hospital.

Uniformity of resources is lacking, contributing to non-emergency calls perceived as emergencies.

Personas

Journey Maps

Design Requirements:

Final Design Requirements		Process of Taking Research Findings and Turning into Design Requirements
Emergency Management	Decision-making support during sick days Understanding the difference between emergency vs. non-emergency situations How to remedy the incorrect administration of insulin	Pulled key findings from our affinity map
Education	Emergency kits Education Protocols Access to CHOA materials Resources on pumps/CGM info Access to specific circumstances in diabetes Access to other information and trusted partners AI Search Tool Age-appropriate discussion for Type 1 info and care	Created a table with the findings from the affinity map, created a user need, prioritized the user needs, and finnally wrote the requirements
Calculators	Simple calculators for insulin measurement Explainability of math/results Saving preferences, constant values (routine) Simplifying carb calc by saving food	Grouped all of the design requirements into categories and added design ideas for the next phase of sketching

Data Useage (Quantitative Analysis)

Goal:

Leverage app useage data collected by Pendo to target frequent users and analyze trends

Rationale:

To utilize a non-intrusive way of understanding how the users are interacting with the app. To have a baseline for measuring when changes are made to the app to measure the impact.

Research Questions:

What features of the app are the most used?

What features of the app are the least used?

How long are users using the app?

How often are users returning to the app?

When are users using the app?

How do new user interactions differ from returning users?

What are the most common paths users are taking?

When do users stop using the app?

Which parts of the app lead users to confusion?

Context:

Used Pendo and CSVs to analyze the data to answer the research questions

The data has been collected for the whole life of the app which is about 1 year

Findings:

Still a work in progress but the biggest finding is that 79% of the app is not being used

Sketches

With the design requirements in mind, as a team we sketched a set of frames to be concept tested with users.

Feature Priority Testing

Goal:

Understand where is the user priorities in the proposed features to help us narrow down what should be included in the final design

Rationale:

In developing the design requirements from the research findings, as a team we were struggling to narrow down our focus and scope for the redesign, so we decided to have the experts and users rank which features they would classify as most important.

Research Questions:

How do experts and users perceive which features are most important?

Which features are least important?

Are there any features that are missing?

Context:

Tested out a total of 28 cards with all the proposed app features

Healthcare providers (doctors, nurses, and educators) ranked the cards in groups of about 7 into categories

The 4 categories included: Must have, Should Have, Could Have, and Remove

Tested with 2 healthcare providers in person (recruited through Children's Hospital of Atlanta)

Tested with 10 healthcare providers virtually (recruited through the platform User Interviews)

Findings:

Work in progress but I have been analyzing the data from the rankings by using the median value of the cards and the standard deviation to see how similar the groupings are between users.

Concept Testing

Goal:

To understand what the users initial ideas (in sketch form) are about the redesign before diving into high fidelity wireframes

Rationale

Low stakes environment to check if the designs are going in the right direction before completing full wireframes

Research Questions

Is the layout and navigation intuitive, allowing users to complete key tasks without confusion?

Which elements of the design are most helpful or engaging, and which aspects cause hesitation or frustration?

How well does the visual hierarchy guide users toward important information or actions?

Context:

Physically printedmade copies of all of the frames and had 2 healthcare providers mark up any changes they would make to the frames

Virtually tested the sketches with 10 healthcare providers, noting any changes

Findings:

Work in progress

High Fidelity

User Testing

Final Prototype

Impact

Lessons Learned