The most important factor is the child's own learning curve. They need to learn how to monitor their own diabetes. The parents are also constantly worried about their child.

- MARGARETA BERGGREN, SPECIALIST NURSE AT UMEÅ UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

EXPERT INTERVIEWS

We held several one-on-one interviews with nurses and specialists at Umeå University Hospital. The most valuable feedback we got, was that the product/system should encourage the child to be more autonomous. It also gave us insights about the pain of the parents, who constantly monitor their children.

EMPATHIZE

We started the first week by with extensive contextual interviews with nurses, parents and with searching for facts and how people commented on on Facebook and social media parenting groups.

75% of of children with type-1 diabetes usually fail to achieve the recommended blood sugar level when they are not supervised.

Deciding what to eat is based on the carbs contained in each meal. For every 10 carbs, 1 unit of insulin is needed. The problem is that young children are too inexperienced to understand what and how much they should eat. Therefore, an adult always needs to be present in order to calculate carbs. 

We discovered that the connection between parent child is put at a major stress when parents are constantly supervising their children, making them feel disempowered. 

IDEATION

Using sketches, user journeys and embodied interaction such as impro-theatre to put ourself in to the place of the child. I was structuring and building the storytelling.

PROTOTYPING

Our next step was to explore different sound design techniques, followed by Wizard of Oz testing. We 3D-printed a model of the scanner and programmed various light and audio interactions using Arduino. Finally, we built an interactive mockup of the application used by the parent.

TESTING WITH HOSPITAL STAFF AND FAMILIES

CHALLENGES AND RESOLUTION

We first had challenges due to time pressure and in knowing which directions to take regarding tackling a sensitive topic such as healthcare for children. The feedback from doctors and nurses gave us valuable hints, but also our imagination and strategic research on existing technologies. We first thought of making a notification system, for all parts of the child life, but it became too we realised that would become very broad and unfocused. Then:

I took the lead on making the strategic choice to focus on the relation to food and food scanning technology, to empower the child, and improve the parent - to - child relation.

MY ROLE

In this project I took the lead on connecting people together and prototyping aspects of the mock-up such as textiles and UI on a graphical level when conducting the system mapping. I took the lead on the Storytelling, structuring the user journey and what interactions the device would have towards the user (child).

In the end I believe the mock-up (model) is a bit too big in its scale, but this was perfect to show to the nurses that the technology could be used in their field and not only the fitness/health field. I would have liked for us to test with more children, but due to the short span of two weeks we chose to focus on the experts from the hospital . 

PROJECT REFLECTION

Today, parents of children with diabetes fear of letting go of control, and they are not trusting others to take responsibility for their own child.

There is a huge need for this type of technology in the diabetes monitoring field.

With SNASK, the child can have the scanner always with him and send updates to his parents throughout the day, while the patch on his arm regulates his blood sugar level and makes the necessary insulin injections. As a way to shorten the child's learning curve and encourage him to take responsibility over his disease, he can actually choose when to do an injection by pressing the button on the device.