Helping users manage glucose levels with AI-powered logging

Glide is a companion app concept designed to help users decode glucose data from wearable sensors. It offers easy logging and actionable insights to improve metabolic health.

Goal

We set out to create an innovative CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) app concept tailored for an underserved audience: prediabetic, at-risk, and health-conscious users.

Glide’s main goal is to give them the tools to better understand and manage their glucose levels, encouraging a proactive approach to metabolic health.

Challenge

Many health-conscious users are turning to CGMs, but without guidance, they often feel overwhelmed by the data and unsure how to interpret it and make lifestyle choices based on it. This confusion can make it hard to take meaningful steps toward healthier habits.

Outcome

Our team designed Glide, a concept for a CGM companion app focused on accessible glucose tracking and personalized insights and recommendations based on health behaviors.

The app concept introduces quick, easy and accurate AI-powered logging, personalized feedback, and educational support, guiding users through small, achievable health experiments that foster better glucose stability and confidence in managing metabolic health.

1 /

Foundational Market and UX Insights

Desk Research

We began with comprehensive desk research, mapping the CGM landscape to understand user needs across health-conscious and diabetic populations. Reviewing user feedback, scientific articles and community discussions helped us identify key areas for user education and engagement.

Competitor Analysis

Analyzing official and third-party Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) companion apps, we assessed features, user experience, and limitations. By examining both diabetes management apps and health optimization solutions, we pinpointed opportunities to enhance user support, simplify tracking, and foster experimentation.

Expert Reviews

We conducted hands-on testing with our own data, thoroughly evaluating CGMs and their official companion apps from onboarding through to data visualization, reports, and settings. This expert review highlighted key UX issues and missed opportunities, providing crucial insights for enhancing usability in our app concept.

2 /

User Interviews

Our in-depth interviews with CGM users, including both diabetic and health-conscious individuals, aimed to understand their challenges, experiences, and motivations. Conducted remotely, these 45-minute interviews provided key insights that shaped our app design.

Participant Demographics

12 participants: 3 from Hungary, 9 from the US
Two-thirds diabetic, one-third health-conscious/at-risk

Main Themes Explored

Diabetes Management: Tools, routines, and evolution in CGM use
Data Usage: Daily decision-making around diet, activity, and medication
Behavioral Impact: Confidence, control, and trust in CGM data
User Experience: Intuitiveness, features, and response to notifications
Future Needs: Desired improvements and new features for CGMs

Following the interviews, we used FigJam to organize findings into an affinity map, highlighting common patterns and actionable insights. AI tools aided our analysis but manual synthesis ensured emotional nuance.

Interview Key Learnings

Behind Spikes

Users sought insights into how behaviors like sleep, meals, stress, and exercise affected their glucose levels and spikes.

Apps missing support

Current apps don’t support education and experimentation, leaving users to connect the dots and carry the mental load of learning and pattern recognition themselves.

Behind Spikes

Education through self-experimentation was crucial, helping users understand their own bodily reactions.

3 /

Value Proposition

Following foundational research, our team of two researchers and two designers held an in-person workshop to define the customer segment and value proposition for our CGM companion app.

For: Pre-diabetic, at-risk, and health-conscious individuals
Who: Want to better understand their metabolic health, prevent chronic diseases, adopt healthier behaviors, and optimize their nutrition
Our product: a Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) companion app
That: Simplifies health-related behavior logging and empowers users with enhanced confidence, knowledge, and control over their blood glucose levels.

This approach helped us map out the key flows and paths that would help users effectively reach their goals with our app.

4 /

Behavioral Journey Map

At this point in our project, we created a behavioral map, a visual tool that outlines the end-to-end steps a user takes to achieve a target behavior, including actions, touchpoints, and potential barriers.

Starting Scenario: Users begin with a CGM for a 14-day period, discover our app, and expect it to support them to improve their metabolic health.
Target Behavior: Active engagement with CGM data, experimenting with lifestyle factors (e.g., diet, exercise), logging behavior, and making informed choices based on the insights provided by our app.
Desired Outcome: Improved confidence, knowledge, and control over blood glucose levels.

This approach helped us map out the key flows and paths that would help users effectively reach their goals with our app.

5 /

Prototyping & Testing

We developed a mid-fidelity Figma prototype to translate insights into a realistic daily flow. Our key innovative features included:

Experimentation with Playbook: Users could explore personalized experiments to observe glucose responses, empowering them to make informed choices for optimized metabolic health.
Data-informed Insights: Real-time feedback on glucose spikes and trends, offering behavioral modifications for improved metabolic stability.
AI-Powered Logging: Designed for a seamless, fast experience, this feature allowed users to log meals via typing, voice, or camera, catering especially to non-diabetic users who prefer simplified, accurate logging.

Feedback from prototype tests with target audience members confirmed the ease of use and desirability of these features, which help users build confidence in managing glycemic control.

6 /

UI Design

Packed with the insights from our usability tests and the learnings of the discovery research, our designer started working on the UI design of Glide. Our goal was to create a visual language that combines the aspect of experimentation, the effortlessness of logging, and the power of education.