Dexcom
Background
I collaborated with UC San Diego's Design Lab on the Diabetes Design Initiative with Dexcom, focusing on challenges faced by visually impaired diabetics. Our team enhanced the discoverability of voice commands and prototyped new commands for the Dexcom G7 app.
NDA Disclaimer
Many details have been omitted from the case study to maintain confidentiality.
Dexcom produces continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems to help people with diabetes track and manage their glucose levels.
Limited Discoverability
Both visually impaired and sighted diabetes patients struggle to set up Siri commands, making it difficult to access key health information through voice.
Lack of Trend and Graph Insights
Current Siri prompts do not provide access to health trends or graphs, preventing users from easily tracking patterns in their glucose data through voice commands.
Key Takeaways
Due to NDA restrictions, I cannot share full details, but we identified two key issues:
Visually abled users were unaware of existing voice commands.
Visually impaired users needed better access to health information through voice commands.
Key Takeaways
Dexcom G6 is the ONLY diabetes device with a Siri-enabled voice interface, but its functionality is limited to a single command: “Hey Siri, what’s my blood glucose?"
Surprising Insight
This indicates that many medical devices for tracking diabetes lack accessibility for users with visual impairments!
5/5 users:
Found our Siri responses easy to understand and use
Found it easy to set up Siri
Visually impaired:
Indicated that they would use our voice prompts 4-5 times a week.
Visually able users:
Indicated that they would use the command for convenience.
Stakeholder Feedback
I presented my design flow with my team to Dexcom professionals at the end of the internship to which all suggestions were approved of!
“I’m so excited about [discoverability features] because I’m working on ... at Dexcom and this will be so meaningful and important to us as we start to look into implementation. I can’t thank you guys enough.”
— Lead UX Designer on G7 Application
“In 7 weeks you’ve covered a lot of different ground. [solutions] are both very promising! Not only will it help us in terms of Android and iOS, but with our receivers as well. This is definitely gonna be valuable across all platforms.”
— UX Director at Dexcom
Designing for Voice Interfaces – This was my first time creating voice prototypes and I learned so much behind the design guidelines for voice user interfaces. For example, I learned about usage scenarios, length of responses, privacy concerns, personality of AI, and more! I also learned how to perform user testing with voice prototypes on Zoom.
Handling Errors & Edge Cases – Voice interactions are unpredictable, so I learned the importance of preparing for errors and unexpected user responses, ensuring a smoother and more reliable voice experience.
User Interviews – Hearing the funny and frustrating moments of living with diabetes and visual impairment humanized our work, reinforcing the importance of addressing real user pain points. It was also insightful to see the contrast in challenges between visually abled and visually impaired users.
Connect more with my mentors – I wish I developed a closer relationship with my mentors by connecting with them about other topics outside of our weekly mentor meetings and feedback sessions.
Conduct user interviews with visually abled users – I wish I performed more user testing with visually abled users to better understand their pain points and usage scenarios with voice commands. Due to time constraints, our team mainly designed for visually impaired users.
