Prototyping a Diet Self-management System for People with Diabetes with Cultural Adaptable User Interface Design

Abstract

Diet management is a critical part of diabetes selfmanagement. This project developed a working prototype application on Android-based mobile phone called SMART CARB that assists people with diabetes to self-manage their diet. The system particularly focused on monitoring carbohydrate intake in order to control their blood glucose levels. The project was positioned as a research extension to the development of the Few Touch mobile phone-application for diabetes self-management system that has been already in use. Food and meal are deeply embedded in local cultures. The project goal was to develop a prototype application that provides diet-self-management tools that reflect users’ behavioral patterns and nature of food in their cultures. For the comparative case studies two cultural settings, Norway and Korea, were selected in order to understand differences in requirements from different food cultures that are critical for developing cultural adaptation mechanisms for the diet selfmanagement system. Two versions of the application, one for Norwegian users and the other for Korean users, were developed with different interfaces reflecting the different natures of these two food cultures and user feedback was obtained through interviews with people with diabetes in these countries.