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

TY - JOUR

T1 - Participatory design of a text message scheduling system to support young people with diabetes

AU - Waller, Annalu

AU - Franklin, Victoria

AU - Pagliari, Claudia

AU - Greene, Stephen

N1 - MEDLINE® is the source for the MeSH terms of this document.

PY - 2006/12/1

Y1 - 2006/12/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/33750712053

U2 - 10.1177/1460458206070023

DO - 10.1177/1460458206070023

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:33750712053

SN - 1460-4582

VL - 12

SP - 304

EP - 318

JO - Health Informatics Journal

JF - Health Informatics Journal

IS - 4

ER -