Memorandum
Over the past couple weeks, Tidepool has put together a fascinating series of blog posts detailing the design process behind the new Bionic Pancreas (iLet) user interface – as a reminder, the fully integrated, dual-chamber, touchscreen prototype device was first unveiled by the highly-admired Dr. Ed Damiano at Friends for Life. The blog posts are a fascinating read into the nuances of automated insulin delivery device design, particularly the balance between human and machine interaction; the right level of alarms; how to design menus; and even why using a keypad makes the most sense. The Tidepool blog is here; it’s well worth reading the posts in order, starting with this one from July 10. The UI designs are available on GitHub here, a testament to Tidepool’s desire to be transparent and open about everything it does. These posts offer more insight and detail beyond the screenshots shown by Dr. Damiano at FFL. The writing also serves as a terrific reminder about how much thought needs to go into the design of these devices – we love, for example, the focus on “glanceability” – we think that’s exactly right (and something Abbott’s Freestyle Libre, for example, recently got right with a different product of late – Flash Glucose Monitoring). The Tidepool team has clearly been remarkably thoughtful about its approach, and there is one more post coming to address frequently asked questions. As a reminder, Dr. Damiano hopes to improve the device by making it smaller and enhancing the touchscreen over the next nine months. It would then progress to a human factors and bridging study with a custom-designed infusion set and the Dexcom G5 transmitter in Q2-Q3 2016.
-- by Adam Brown and Kelly Close