Definition and design of software demonstrating the usefulness of a continuous glucose sensor (to endocrinologists and their patients) by simulating the body’s response to food, exercise, and insulin via a mathematical model.
Why it works
The complexities of diabetes care are deliberately minimized to put the focus on three variables: food, exercise, and insulin, and their effect of blood sugar. In one experience, the user attempts to adjust basal insulin infusion rates, carb-to-insulin ratios, and dosage shape and timing to improve patient performance retrospectively. In the other, the user makes patient lifestyle choices (what and when to eat, when to check blood sugar, when to exercise, when to take insulin) and wrestles with high and low blood sugar as a result.
Ask me for a demonstration! You needn’t be an endocrinologist or a person with diabetes to enjoy a little demo.
What I’d change
The software was never intended for use on a touch screen, but fared well when pressed into service (at the American Diabetes Association national conventions in 2005, 2006, and 2007) save for the sliders used to control basal insulin infusion rates and carbohydrate/insulin ratios. The small slider handles are difficult to fat-finger. Dragging them is iffy on all but the slipperiest touch-sensitive surfaces. I’d like to further enhance the slider interaction by making the sliders’ values more apparent, either by including them in display areas above each slider or on the slider handles themselves. It can be tricky to quickly discern your setting when you are 3/4 of the way to the next graduation on a 3–23 unit scale with ticks every two units.
More from inside the application:
