person viewing result using verio reflect blood glucose meter

Blood Glucose Meter with Smart Mentor

OneTouch Verio Reflect®

LifeScan

UX Design Award Logo

Background

With a close partnership spanning over 10 years, LifeScan entrusted us to create their next generation blood glucose meter. The challenge was to generate the feeling of encouragement and guidance whilst providing users with actionable insights relating to their blood glucose levels. The product needed to embody their refreshed OneTouch brand guidelines by creating an innovative user experience.

The OneTouch Verio Reflect® has quickly become Lifescan’s flagship product. Receiving a worldwide release after being translated into more than 20 languages, it has gone on to receive positive feedback from the European Association for The Study of Diabetes.

Value Delivered

  • Simple, intuitive and engaging design
  • Innovative User Experience
  • Educates the user and improves the ability to manage their blood sugar
  • Motivates lifestyle choices with the aim of improving quality of life
  • Assists Healthcare Professionals in patient monitoring and management
  • Significant cost savings over peer products

Project Scope

Insight & Strategy, Industrial Design, UI/UX, Human Factors, Prototyping & Evaluation, Mechanical Engineering, New Product Integration

Project Scope

Insight & Strategy
Industrial Design
UI/UX
Human Factors
Prototyping & Evaluation
Mechanical Engineering
New Product Integration

It remains the only meter available on the global market with a Blood Sugar Mentor™, allowing every user personalised guidance, insights, and encouragement.

verio reflect showing a congratulatory message on good blood glucose results

Building on Existing Foundations

LifeScan were keen to build upon the successful feedback features we developed for previous meters whilst introducing new features based around contextual feedback. The Empathetic Mentor is intended to successfully guide people through their life with diabetes.

We took time to explore the user’s context, identifying key questions people with diabetes often struggle to answer:

“What does my test result mean?”
“What should I do next?”
“How am I doing with my overall health?”
Our aim was to elicit a conversation that would improve user engagement. Most of all, we wanted testing to be an opportunity to reflect.

Personal Diabetes Coaching

user interface screen for LifeScan Verio Reflect

Insight

Identifying blood sugar patterns, helping users act and improve results.
user interface screen for LifeScan Verio Reflect

Guidance

Helping manage highs and lows.
user interface screen for LifeScan Verio Reflect

Encouragement

Improving motivation to help users stay on track and achieve their management goals.

An Empathetic User Experience

The experience is driven by a dialogue with the ‘Empathetic Mentor’ who listens to you and provides personalised feedback, guidance and encouragement.

By understanding user needs and using principles of gamification and motivation we designed rewarding interactions that bring moments of reflection or encouragement, adding meaning to blood glucose results.
medical user interface showing blood sugar mentor

Simplifying a Blood Sugar Reading

The on-screen ColorSure Dynamic Range Indicator provides a clear visual indicator of the result relative to the users personalised healthy range. It helps indicate if nearing a low or a high, helping the user to act and improve the experience for those recently diagnosed or with lower numerical literacy. When in-range, the mentor provides positive reinforcement.
medical user interface showing easy to interpret dynamic range indicator

Helping Drive Positive Lifestyle Change

The concept of ‘event tagging’ was developed allowing users to quickly ‘tag’ a test result with common contextual events such as ‘stress’, ‘illness’ or ‘exercise’ that impact blood glucose results. The additional context helps identify lifestyle patterns and enables the user to make forward thinking decisions.
user interface screens showing messages and tagging of blood glucose results

Encouraging Frequent Testing

To encourage the frequent testing known to improve diabetes management, principles of gamification were used to introduce a daily test goal. Enabling the user to set a desired number of daily tests, and a range of awards which provide a moment of delight for completing a task.
user interface screen for LifeScan Verio Reflect

Using Data Visualisation to Identify Trends

To provide insights into the long-term health of users, we developed and refined simple data visualisation tools to help identify trends.

The introduction of a 90-day average provides a high-level indication of progress, allowing the user to set a long-term average blood glucose target and track their progress over time towards it.

The introduction of awards provide a moment of encouragement for staying in-range or testing consistently, celebrating improved diabetes management.
user interface screens showing medical data visualisation

Creating an Innovative UX in a Saturated Market

The improved user experience has created an entirely new meaning to blood glucose monitoring. By creating a positive, friendly, and meaningful dialogue, users feel empowered to make significant lifestyle changes and improve their quality of life.

Pairing the meter with the OneTouch Reveal app provides access to colourful and simple visuals to explain and highlight patterns, track blood glucose, food, insulin, and activity data over time. Results can be shared with Health Care Professionals allowing users to stay on track and engaged between visits.
Blood glucose meter showing positive healthcare essage

From Initial Concept Through to High Volume Manufacturing

Our team navigated Lifescan throughout the whole development process, delivering a significant reduction in costs whilst ensuring design intent was captured and delivered to the highest standard of quality.

The introduction of a colour LCD enabled the ‘next generation’ UI and increase the perceived product value.

We improved production yield by replacing traditional ultrasonic welding process with screws and the inclusion of a 2-shot moulded lens to replace expensive in-mould decoration. These were both delivered without any loss in functionality, ingress protection and user perception.
We achieved a significant reduction in unit cost compared to peer products whilst still offering ‘next generation’ appeal and improved user experience.
technical engineering drawings for manufacture of verio reflect
The OneTouch Verio Reflect® is now LifeScan’s flagship blood glucose meter, reinvigorating the blood glucose meter market receiving positive feedback from patients and Health Care Providers.

Enjoyed this medical device diagnostics case study?