Type 2 Guide

Research + Medical Print Design

Project Overview

The Type 2 Guide is a medical magazine publication designed to be given to individuals with prediabetes or newly diagnosed type 2 diabeties. Within this demographic, the goals were to:
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1) Decrease hospitalization rates,
2) Lower A1C levels,
3) Improve quality of life
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The end product was to be a fully printed set of materials to give to patients by their general practitioner upon diagnosis that covered the basic aspects of diabetes self care.

Working with Dr. Ryan Yarnell and his team of diabetes advocates out of Tulsa, OK. This project will soon be user tested by human factors experts and utilized by a consortium of general practitioners, potentially across the country.

My Contributions

My design goals were to:
1) Create easily accessible information targeting individuals with low health literacy within the underserved communities surrounding Tulsa, OK.
2) Integrate an element of digital interface and information retrieval
3) Create a document that was not only helpful to the patient but accessible to and understandable by their family, friends, and social network
4) Incorporate gamification to aid in education efficacy
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All research, extrapolation, design, layout, and copywriting is my own, unless otherwise noted.

This project originated within the graduate level Advanced Design Methods class at the University of Kansas where each member worked independently under professor Hannah Park.

At the beginning of the research and ideation portion of this project the focus was understanding target demographics, their habits, lifestyles, and mindsets. As a designer, understanding where my end users are in life is key to creating viable and useful solutions.

Tulsa and Oklahoma in general are at the front of the diabetes epidemic in the United States. Woefully so. The Indigenous, black, and latin populations make up a disproportionate percentage of diabetics in relation to their per capita population. In general, diabetics are older, more likely to be sedentary, smoke, and have little education. Health Literacy is a huge part of medical information design and communication, yet few doctor - patient communications and products cater to those in the lowest 37% of barely being able to understand. This can stem from language barriers, learning disabilities, lack of experience with the health care system, and even downright distrust of medical professionals.

Personas are a design research tool used to build a fictional character that is based on the real world population. This builds empathy and creates a narrative around the design problem. Debra became my target group as she is in a high risk demographic, but also takes on a lot of care based responsibility. Her tendency to ignore problems she doesn't understand threaten's her future.

My research identified the grief recovery journey as the guiding map for this project. Often times, recently diagnosed T2 diabetics are only in the doctors office for 15 minutes as they are told what diabetes is, what they need to do, and what it will mean for their lives. Being in shock, angry, or denial effectively blocks their ability to remember anything that the doctor said. Compound that with any Health Literacy barriers and their information retention plumets.

With this insight, I identified the goal of this guide: move the patient from stage 1 to stage 3 as quickly as possible (See below).

Research

User + Academic Research

While reading through articles, type 2 diabetic websites, testimonials, and videos, I began seeing patterns in how patients reacted in different ways and expressed their needs, wants, and goals.

Utilizing the Convergence Map, these patterns began to take shape and crystalize into tangible needs. People want to comprehend what their doctors and health care professionals are telling them, they want those doctors to be patient and sensitive with them, not treat them like they are dumb, or dismiss them, and they want to know how to take care of themselves in a way that won't bankrupt them, alienate their friends and family, or make them feel like they are broken and unable to participate in their own lives.

Creating a series of Value Hypothesis allowed me to take these insights and distill them into solutions by identifying the users, their needs, possible offerings, future benefits, and organizations who've already worked on similar projects.

A Narrative of Success was written to further build the empathic bond between myself, the doctors, and their patients. It framed a solution as something simple, kind, educational, and empowering.

The ideas really started flowing now, I made a List of Opportunities and began sketching Low Fidelity Mockups of how those would look.

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Research

Media, Academic Research, + Analysis

The print media constraints steered this project toward a magazine-type solution as it was the only format that allowed for the majority of the opportunities to be realized while reducing in-office facilitation requirements. Prototypes were mocked up and presented to the clients with feedback several times.

High Fidelity Prototypes were then distributed to a group of unnofilliated participants. Covid limited our abilities to conduct testing, but I was able to receive valuable feedback in the form of A/B and Semantic Testing on the layout, content, and design choices made in the prototype.

Prototyping + Testing

Information Presentation + Feedback

Upon finalizing the design and content, I wrote up a 10 question, multiple choice survey to help doctors understand what their patients understand or missed based on the information given in the T2 Guide. As an added benefit, cognitive psychology tells us it also serves as an anchor for patients to recall information about their diagnosis, further benefiting their health literacy and wellbeing in the future.

As the only designer who chose to go full color, professionally printed magazines, there was some pushback as to the cost of printing. I was able to reduce the cost for a 36 page full collor, full bleed magazine to $3.19 per guide at 200 copies (the estimated number of new type 2 patients Dr. Yarnall served in 2019), this came in below all other projects that relied on in-office staff to print, compile, and organize products, lowering office overhead.

Survey + Printing Logistics

Completing the Picture

The T2 Guide is the most well thought out informational product of its kind compared to the market to date. The doctors, their advocates, and myself are excited to see this go through user testing, revisions, and distribution. While this document did not address all of the issues, or capitalize on all of the opportunities, it has many innovative elements:
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1) It treats the patient like a human utilizing sympathetic conversational tones
2) Simple language designed to accompany and medically inform people through a difficult time
3)Use of digital integration, website listings, and QR codes
4) Ability to be updated for any doctors office, maps easily edited, or local resource lists compiled
5) Gamification of diabetes education, included are real crossword puzzles, and options abound
6) Distribution, cheap and effective communication means this could be given to friends and family, or left at coffee shops and restaurants for pedestrians to pick up and hopefully raise awareness in the general population of this preventable disease

I look forward to being a part of this process going forward and give special thanks to the doctor's, their patient advocates, the patients interviewed, the survey participants, my classmates, professor Park, and the University of Kansas for all being integral parts of this project.

Conclusion

Innovations and Gratitude