This responsive digital platform aims to integrate family-centered care into diabetes management by demystifying the illness for young patients and empowering them with agency, while encouraging parents to provide the appropriate type of care and support.
Objective
Understand the needs of the patients and their families
and hear out their concerns, experience and feedback
Employ participatory design methods
to involve the users as part of the design process
Integrate research findings into the digital platform
by creating a set of values to abide by
Approach
Research
Values
Redefine “child-friendly” content
Instead of patronizing cartoons and characters, employ accessible and engaging visuals.
Promote engagement in the diabetes community
Forming a community allows child patients to know theyare not alone and parents to share their tips and advices.
Encourage transparency and honesty
In other words, don’t sugar coat things.
Put the child in the middle of their own health journey
Let them be the main participant in their diabetes management.
Encourage caretakers to engage and support
Show them ways they can guide and help their child in an appropriate and non-invasive way.
Provide customizability + tailored content
Every person’s case is unique- narrowing and filtering down the material can reduce confusion and information overload.
Features
Video Prototype
Reflection
This project was an opportunity for me to explore many elements of designing a product. From participant recruitment and market research to participatory design and creating a platform with 3 responsive device screens, I think I explored quite a number of product design aspects.
The values that I had formulated from this round of research was very crucial to the project. I was excited to see that I was able to lay out the core fundamentals for designing for childhood diabetes management. I think the values really help set the goal for the project.
Michelle Chan
As a process-driven design practitioner and researcher, I am always looking for new ways to research and design to solve real-world problems. My goal is to formulate innovative methods that consider design-thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration. Throughout my career, I hope I can make important changes that will shift the health design culture.
As a student, I strived to explore types of art and design practices. I used each project to learn something new and develop my process of designing. I found passion in elements in interaction design that I loved, such as service design and design research.