Making Diabetes Education Interactive: Tangible Educational Toys for Children with Type-1 Diabetes

Younger children (under 9 years) with type-1 diabetes are often very passive in the management of their condition and can face difficulties in accessing and understanding basic diabetes related information. This can make transitioning to self-management in later years very challenging. Previous research has mostly focused on educational interventions for older children.<br>To create an educational tool which can support the diabetes educational process of younger children, we conducted a multiphase and multi-stakeholder user-centred design process. The result is an interactive tool that illustrates diabetes concepts in an age-appropriate way with the use of tangible toys. The tool was evaluated inside a paediatric diabetes clinic with clinicians, children and parents and was found to be engaging, acceptable and effective. In addition to providing implications for the design and adoption of educational tools for children in a clinical setting, we discuss the challenges for conducting user-centred design in such a setting.