Design Experiments. Identifying areas for intervention and designing medical technology for adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes

Abstract

Adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes are frequently required to use medical devices to manage their condition. While the devices are clinically effective, they have many psychosocial impacts on their users. Identifying the user requirements of young medical device users could benefit the design and development of these devices. In this study, interviews regarding medical technology use were conducted with seven females with type 1 diabetes aged 13-21. Five resulting user requirements were used to inform design experiments with 28 undergraduate industrial designers. Finally, a selection of the designs was shown to six of the participants with diabetes to both validate the initial analysis of the interviews and as a prompt to facilitate further discussion about user experiences and medical technology preferences. We argue that while the clinical efficacy of medical technology is significant, so too is the effective use of these technologies by a variety of users in everyday contexts.