Case Studies

Designing a Simplified Future of Diabetes Management

MaybeForYou partnered with Diasyst to help implement a human-centered design process. Uncovering key insights for improving their product and helping simplify diabetes management.

Introducing a human-centered process not only helped improve the experience for both patients and physicians, it also provided a framework to assist with the FDA approval process.

Overview

There are currently over 34 million Americans, one in every ten people, living with diabetes. Diabetes management for most of these people consists of pricking their fingers, logging their glucose levels, focusing on eating healthy and staying active, and taking prescribed medications. Patients typically only get a chance to discuss their disease with their physician a few times a year. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to identify patterns that could lead to a more healthy life. Resulting in a disconnect that hinders treatment options and is more costly for everyone involved.

Diasyst has developed a solution that helps simplifies things and reduces this disconnect. Providing patients with a solution for taking control of their condition by tracking their blood levels, activities, and medications with ease. This information is then transmitted to their healthcare provider in real-time. Giving physicians better data and increased clarity so they can make more informed and proactive decisions in a patient's healthcare.

Diasyst hired MaybeForYou for assistance in design leadership and product design. They had an early version of their product and were looking to refine their design process to ensure:

They were focusing on the right features and functionality.
They were designing the best experience to address the unique challenges and accessibility needs of their users.
They had a proven process in place to scale their product team as they continued to grow.

Client: Diasyst
Area of Focus: Consumer Products & Services

TL;DR.

Refined the product design process to integrate a human-centered approach.
Helped improve the experience and address accessibility issues in both Patient and Provider applications.
Helped strategize, define, and design new functionality based on user research, insights, and observations.

Services Provided.

Design Leadership
DesignOps
User Research
Ethnographic Research & Shadowing
Product Strategy
User Experience Design
User Interface Design
Prototypes & Testing

Learn More About Our Services

Process.

Discover

Define

Design

Putting People At The Center Of The Process

As we began our work, we realized the majority of Diasyst’s research up to that point had been done by talking primarily with people in the healthcare industry. While a lot of thought had gone into how to streamline the process for providers, little had been done to validate assumptions and product decisions with actual patients.

This led us to set up user testing sessions, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research of both user types – patients and providers. We even started pricking our fingers and using the application ourselves in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding and build empathy with these users. Right away we uncovered several challenges that many people, especially older patients suffering with degenerating eyesight, were struggling with.

By inviting the users into the design process, we were able to more easily identity pain points and real issues that existed in the software. This not only provided a more accurate action plan of things needing to be addressed, it also led to an increased ROI. As addressing these items lead to a decrease in customer support and ensure development time was spent addressing functionality that had a direct impact on a person’s experience.

Scientific By Design

A human-centered design approach, shares a lot of similarities with the scientific method. This proved to be extremely beneficial as Diasyst started looking into FDA approval of their products. By being able to show how ideas were researched, designed, and validated we had instituted a framework that aligned with what regulators were seeking. Adjusting the process to include detailed documentation helped further streamline what is typically a very arduous process.

Overall, this refined approach to design has had tremendous benefits for patients, providers, payers, and Diasyst. Some of the direct functionality that has stemmed from this new methodology is: improved accessibility within the applications; a more streamlined and informative onboarding process; and an AI-powered chatbot that connects the patient with their healthcare team to answer questions and provides a more active role in fighting their disease.