Dexcom Research Project

My Roles: User research co-lead & scribe

Timeline: 10 weeks

Responsibilities

We were given a vague concept to work with, so a lot of time was spent defining the problem and trying different approaches.

I planned and directed our research process and liaised with the community for user interviews. I was proactive in proposing solutions when we were met with obstacles and successfully rerouting our team journey.

Final Deliverable

This was my first design sprint that did not end with a design prototype, as we deemed it simply not appropriate for the scope. Our final deliverable was a 24-minute presentation to Dexcom leadership about our research findings, potential areas of exploration, and other recommendations.

Design Prompt

How might we design features and supporting services to make Dexcom better suited for introduction in a new market?

SECONDARY RESEARCH

Understanding the Market

First, we conducted secondary research using news articles, research papers, and analyzing existing market research. As we had a plethora of data that were kinda all over the place, we used this data to create an affinity map where we were able to identify the 3 main challenges to tackle during this project.

  1. Cultural Differences

  2. Unique Insurance Policies & Regulations

  3. Trust in Healthcare Providers

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Talking to People

Once we validated our direction with our internal stakeholders, we moved onto talking to people with diabetes.

We have the data now, but we need evidence to back it up.

Our goal was to understand their perspectives on diabetes medical devices and how they make decisions in their diabetes management.

FINDINGS

Key Insights

While I am unable to dive into our key insights from our research, we created an affinity map to organize quotes and key findings. Through coding and analyzing our data, we identified a dynamic relationship among various key players in the market.

UH OH #1

COVID threw a massive wrench in the research process

We had originally planned to conduct follow-up interviews with previous interviewees. However, due to the pandemic and tragedies/hardship happening in their community, we could no longer get in touch with them.

Our Solution

Thus, we decided to create an online survey as a replacement because:

  • It’s a lot more time efficient (30 min interview vs. 5 min survey)

  • It’s a lot easier to spread the word (scheduling interview time vs. mass emailing diabetic communities)

  • We could hone in on certain quantitative measures since we had a larger response net

As an added incentive, we vowed to make a donation to COVID relief for every survey response we received.

PIVOT!

UH OH #2

…well that didn’t work

However, we still didn’t get a single response.

PIVOT!

Our Solution

Since the world was battling with many hardships due to COVID, we decided to rely on ourselves. We conducted more in depth secondary research on the topics that we had hoped to explore in our survey.

We looked at and analyzed:

  • News articles

  • Publications

  • Vlogs & blogs

  • Academic Journals

We also sent follow up emails with gentle reminders of our financial incentive and our team mission.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Surprise!

We suddenly received 22 responses to our survey as one of our participants kindly forwarded it to people with diabetes in their social circle. Alongside all the newfound data and info analyses, we were now bursting at the seams with information!

Affinity Mapping

In order to organize this information, we created yet another affinity map. We kept building on this by identifying connections, highlighting recurring concepts, and summarizing data within the themes that we identified:

Oh, the joys of creating an organized mess!

MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS

Time Crunch!

We were on a time crunch. Due to the survey delay and the amount of unexpected information we had to synthesize and sort through, we had less than a week until our final presentation to Dexcom leadership.

We had already decided not to create a design prototype, so we devoted all our time to research & curating recommendations.

My Proposal

As the research lead, I proposed that we come up with How Might We statements for each theme to connect with key insights and research validation. Since we had the information already extracted, all we had to do was make associations and consolidate our findings.

This sped up the process and we were able to quickly come up with a list of evidence-backed recommendations for Dexcom.

FINAL PRESENTATION

Now that we had so much information, how are we going to fit them all in a digestible 20-minute presentation?

Presentation Plan

Using our research, we had already created a user persona to narrate a success story. I proposed that we create two additional personas to compare to our existing persona.

We would then be able to represent three groups of people at different points on their journey towards a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and how Dexcom can seamlessly enter this specific market.

THE PRESENTATION

Storyline

We presented these user personas and walked through their journey maps one after the other. We also made sure to highlight their interactions with any stakeholders crucial in our project (ie. the audience of this presentation)

This method was extremely successful in building a rich storyline. We received feedback that the audience was engaged and were able to empathize with these users.

PRESENTATION PREP

Reflection

I often expect design sprints to result in an outcome of prototypes, mockups, or wireframes, but this was not the case. This project was more research focused and where user insights were much more valued, as the project is still in the early stages of development. I gained a whole new understanding of design thinking - it’s okay to spend as much time on research as needed. This will prevent design spirals later on, help avoid ambiguity, and build a strong foundation for compelling product design.

I gained a new perspective towards design prompts — we were given a problem that we knew existed, but what were the other facets of the problem that we still don't understand?

While it is rewarding to design a physical prototype, discovering research insights and making recommendations to a large company was an amazing experience! The mentorship I received was invaluable, a huge thanks to our partners at Dexcom!