SMART CARB : a mobile nutrition self-management application for people with diabetes

Abstract

The main research problem in this thesis project was to develop a mobile phone application which can help people with diabetes to make right choices in selecting food items for better nutrition management. The major challenge was minimizing the information displayed and finding a way to persuade the users to change their food habits. Smart Carb, a simple application was developed to solve this problem and tested by 27 Type 2 diabetics in Norway and South Korea. The Norwegian participants who had experience with the 'Few Touch application' expressed their strong willing to use this application. However the Korean participant who did not have experience with kind of application and the smart phone itself, were more sceptical or afraid of using this application. Nevertheless most of the participants agreed that it is important to track the amount of carbohydrate intake, and expressed that it is difficult to estimate the amount of carbohydrate. Therefore they wanted to have a tool to help them to estimate carbohydrate amounts. The impact or effectiveness of this system was positive to the participant, specially the Norwegian participants who had experience with mobile diabetes self-help tool.