Beyond Digital Interventions: Human-Centered Design for Adolescents’ Type 1 Diabetes Management in LMICs

TL;DR

This paper explores using human-centered design to create a paper-based diabetes management tool for adolescents in low-income countries, where smartphone use is limited.

Contribution

The study introduces a paper-based diary for T1D management, developed through collaboration with Kenyan adolescents and caregivers.

Findings

Design workshops revealed the need for non-digital tools among adolescents with T1D in LMICs.

The paper diary was developed based on user research and community input.

The project highlights the value of non-digital HCD outcomes like community-building and knowledge creation.

Abstract

Human-centered design (HCD) centers users’ perspectives in the technology design process. This approach is widely used in ICTD to develop digital interventions for people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including mobile health (mHealth) applications. However, primarily using HCD to develop digital interventions limits understanding of how to design interventions for users who do not regularly use digital technologies, particularly smartphones. In this article, we contribute a case study documenting our collaboration with Kenyan adolescents and their caregivers to develop a prototype paper-based diary to support type 1 diabetes (T1D) management. We describe how outcomes from the project’s user research and ideation phases—in particular, findings from two design workshops—contributed to the development of the diary. Our findings motivate a discussion about considering alternative HCD outcomes: in particular, non-digital interventions, new knowledge creation, and community-building

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