Design and prototyping for disability : Dìa case study

The present paper introduces the approach applied for the creation of Dìa, an open source blood glucose meter controlled through an Arduino board. The project was developed during the “Intelligent Products” Design Studio of the Product Design Master Course at Iuav University of Venice.At the beginning of the design process a User Research has been con-ducted. It consisted by diabetes-affected people interviews and online que-stionnaires. This phase was fundamental to achieve our objective: a user-orien-ted product. Starting from the existing Open Source project, the “Open Source Arduino Blood Glucose Meter Shield” that we found on hackaday.io, we have implemented it by integrating a code for the data transmission with a Node MCU, the design of the shell, the study of a new mechanism for the lancing and the creation of a Web App accessible both from the user and from the doctor.“Dìa” is a product that has four main features: lancing, glucometer, sending data to a WebApp for smartphone and the creation of measurements history performed by the user. Dìa is an integrated product that allows the diabetic patient to have always the opportunity to sting the finger and detect the blood sugar: everything is inside one product connected to a WiFi and a WebApp. The study of the product and service is one of the foundations of our project because we are convinced that, despite the new sensor developed for dia-betic person, the blood glucose measurement is the only measurement that the patient can really trust. An imperative is therefore to be able to maintain an historical measurement and, at the same time, have a dialogue at any time with the doctor, who has the possibility to check the glycemic trend of the patient. At the end of our study we’ve created a functional prototype, exhibited during the “Design Open Lab” at the Iuav University of Venice.