This Article Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Waller, A. Articles by Greene, S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Participatory design of a text message scheduling system to support young people with diabetes

School of Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, awaller{at}computing.dundee.ac.uk

Victoria Franklin

Maternal and Child Health Sciences, University of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital, Medical School, Dundee, v.franklin{at}dun1dee.ac.uk

Claudia Pagliari

Division of Clinical and Community Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Claudia.Pagliari{at}ed.ac.uk

Stephen Greene

Maternal and Child Health Sciences, University of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital, Medical School, Dundee, s.a.greene{at}dundee.ac.uk

Effective self-management of diabetes requires considerable behavioural change and continuous support from health professionals, which can be expensive. Information technology has the potential to offer cost-effective patient support, but internet use mostly relies on the active seeking of information. Text messaging offers an ideal channel for delivering ‘push’ support and facilitating reciprocal communication between patient and health professional. This paper describes a participatory design methodology to develop a text message scheduling system for supporting young people with diabetes. The project illustrates how this familiar design approach can be used in a short-term project to deliver a successful medical application. Close working between clinician and software developer led to successive user-informed iterations as the clinician became more aware of the system’s potential and identified barriers. The result was a reliable, functional, acceptable and usable system that was effectively implemented in its intended setting.

Key Words: diabetes • diabetes self-management • text messaging • treatment scheduling

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?