Improving the CGM onboarding experience

Meeting the rising demand for a more intuitive user experience in data-intensive interfaces.

Role
UX Designer
Timeline
10 weeks
Tools used
Figma, Sketch, UserZoom
Project brief
A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) is a wearable device that measures blood sugar levels in real-time, providing patients with diabetes instant feedback on their glucose levels. With improvements in data collection and analysis, CGM apps have a unique opportunity in advancing diabetes management. However, in order to introduce these data-rich features to users, apps must mitigate mental burden and encourage exploratory usage to promote feature adoption.
Project Research
•
Proposed Concepts
•
User Research
•
Future Steps
A sneak peak

Offer users a dynamic walkthrough of the newest key features.

Streamlined the learning curve for new features by clearly demonstrating their functions and benefits, reducing the cognitive effort needed for users to grasp the user flow.
⬇ Scroll to witness the magic of the process! ⬇
Problem Space
CGM adoption is not only growing among Type 1 diabetics but is also becoming a pivotal tool for Type 2 diabetes management, and is gaining traction among health and wellness enthusiasts.
As AI and data collection techniques advance, CGMs are becoming increasingly adept at analyzing frequent sensor readings to provide more precise pattern evaluations, trend insights, and potentially even treatment suggestions.
During CGM onboarding, users often face significant cognitive load, leading not only to challenges in retaining the provided information but also the underuse of features they've previously expressed interest in.

Core Features of a CGM

Current Reading
The current sensor reading for blood glucose.
Trend Graph
The depiction of blood glucose readings over a period of time, creating a trendline.
History/Logbook/Activity
Page of the app the user can track additional events & activities that impact their diabetes management.
Connections/Connected Apps
Page of the app that displays all current external connections the app has, including the transmitter, any other Bluetooth devices, or social connections.
Profile/Settings
Page of the app overlooking app personalization, and other app settings.

Problem Statement

How might we provide users with a personalized and concise onboarding and educational experience that encourages them to make their own explorations, and support patients over time in understanding how their CGM can further be integrated into their diabetes care?

Design Process

Current Traits of App Onboarding

Key Insights

Apps renowned for their exceptional user onboarding and education typically exhibit a mix of features: beyond initial onboarding, they guide users with a clear starting point on the home page, offer an educational hub for further self-driven exploration, and provide an array of tips and walkthroughs for popular features and flows.
Most wearable apps, including fitness and CGM's like Fitbit and FreeStyle Libre, fall short in integrating these user-friendly features, often leaning heavily on initial onboarding to introduce app functionalities. In contrast, Supersapiens, with its focus on athletic performance and wellness instead of just CGM readings, uses these additional educational flows, indicating a promising direction for future CGM app developments.
Many apps utilize a multi-step approach to education and re-education of app features. Users also expect to put in the most onboarding work near the beginning of their app experience.

Core Features of a CGM

Discovery & Understanding
Ensure users can successfully discover educational information themselves so they understand app features.
Visibility
Many features are currently underutilized simply due to lack of visibility within app.
Interactivity
Users feel less mental burden and retain more information with interactive education.
Value
Users aren’t being told why they should be using a feature and how it can benefit their diabetes care.
General Education Opportunities
Opportunity to provide additional education for Type 2 Diabetics, Gestational Diabetics, and Wellness users.
Exploration
Users are not prompted to explore the app. In particular, passive users are unlikely to discover a feature and/or its value to them.

Concepting Solutions

Proposed Concepts

Tip Pop-up

Gives users some additional context during their usage of the app.

Spotlight Walkthrough

Gives users an interactive introduction to new features and flows, eliminating common confusions.

Modular Banner

Introduces a call-to-action that allow users to enter unfamiliar flows.

Exploratory Hub

Introduces niche topics and usage guides users can choose to explore at their own pace.

Tips Pop-up

Purpose

Automatically provides contextual information for users actively interacting with the app.
Discovery
Visibility

Description

Pop-ups appear throughout the user’s app experience: for example, a pop-up would appear early in the user’s usage of the app, and give extra context regarding the features of the trend graph.

The pop-up takes up a significant portion of the screen, meaning this form of education should be reserved for primary connections & features of the app. A clear pathway should also be outlined regarding how often similar pop-ups appear when users haven’t performed the desired action, and instead click the easily accessible “x” to dismiss the pop-up.

Spotlighted Walkthrough

Purpose

Provides a more interactive onboarding experience if users want more information.
Interactivity

Description

The spotlighted walkthrough is an in-depth, interactive way to introduce key features and flows to users near the beginning of their app journey. Users should have the choice to enter the interactive flow, as well as exit the flow at any point.

The walkthrough can also be used following the pop-up mentioned above. There should be a clear entry point for users to enter this flow, and ideally a place for users to revisit the flow if they choose.

Modular Banner

Purpose

Gives the user a call-to-action relevant to their usage of their app.
Discovery
Visibility
Exploration

Description

A banner may appear in response to in-app insights, usage patterns, or notifications. Banners appear passively on the app interface, with minimal impact to the overall function. The user can easily choose to interact with the banner, dismiss the banner, or leave the banner alone for it to disappear on its own.

Because of this, the messaging displayed on the banner should be reserved for niche features and repeats & reminders.

Exploratory Hub

Purpose

Gives the user a space to explore additional information, user guide info, and help.
Interactivity
General Ed

Description

The Exploratory Hub is a section within the app dedicated to niche features and topics the user can choose to learn more on their own time. Separated from the main pages of the app, the exploratory hub is both passive and unobtrusive, meaning that this feature is not a good method of pertinent communication to the user.

Thus, the information offered to the user in this section is best if personalized to them, and should compensate the user for the time they dedicated to exploration with a better app experience.

User Research

Methodology

Unmoderated task study

Participants were given tasks to complete with an interactive prototype.

Fielded on UserZoom

Participants were encouraged to navigate the prototype and say their thoughts out loud.

16 self-selected participants

Participants had not seen this project, and were giving their first impressions.

Goals & Tasks

Discovery & Understanding
Can the user navigate the concepted flow with ease?
Visibility
Does the user expect to see the associated educational material?
Interactivity
Does the user find the flow useful in context of the app?
Value
Can the user notice and identify the educational material?

Results

1

Tips Pop-up

  • Participants did not consider the pop-up a primary source of information in the app.
  • Participants were split on the usefulness of the pop-up based on how familiar they were with the app.
2

Spotlight Walkthrough

  • Many participants expressed delight for the formatting of the walkthrough.
  • Some participants assumed the walkthrough was more interactive than it was.

How can the walkthrough be more interactive?

  • Insert a frame that zooms out of the spotlight to allow and indicate to users that they can try out the introduced feature.
  • Insert an animation demonstrating the desired action to the user, so they can copy the action afterwards.
  • Put a placeholder icon near the walkthrough features if the user exits the walkthrough early. Give the user the option to dismiss completely.
3

Modular Banner

  • Participants were successfully able to understand the functionality of the banner.
  • Participants expressed interest in a historical view of previous banners.
4

Exploratory Hub

  • Participants were divided in their expectations of the hub being under the profile page, thus lowering the rating for ease of discovery.
  • Participants were mostly interested in being notified when there was new content and personalized insights.

Future Steps & Iteration

Revised Problem Statement

How might we provide users with an onboarding and educational experience that is personalized to their preferences, encourages them to make their own explorations of their CGM app, and ensures the user is getting the value and contextual information necessary for them to utilize app features?

Tips Pop-up

Future
Directions

The usage of the pop-up needs to be optimized in tandem with the timeline of the user’s app usage. Which features are most important for users to learn about first? How can a pop-up be integrated with new or different feature flows?

Further
Iterations

Modular Banner

Future Directions

The modular banner demonstrates significant potential for extending its use to various messaging categories. While the initial label is 'recommended for you,' additional label types can encompass personalized insights, new features, and announcements.

Furthermore, users are interested in a centralized, historic view of the messages they've received previously in the app. A potential exploration of this use case is introducing a "Notifications" hub, which can be used to house all pertinent and supplementary messaging the user receives.

To gain a deeper understanding of user preferences, further user research should be conducted.

Spotlight Walkthrough

Future
Directions

Since users were delighted by the appearance of the spotlight walkthrough, future directions include incorporating the interactivity some users expected. This can be easily done by allowing the features that are spotlighted to maintain their interaction.

Other questions that should be answered include:
  • How should a user revisit the walkthrough if they exit mid-flow?
  • Which features would need something as specific as a spotlighted walkthrough?
  • Can the walkthrough be simplified for more flexible usage?

Exploratory Hub

Future
Directions

In order to improve discoverability, any of the previous solutions can be employed to guide users to the “For You” section in the Profile page. Since users were also most interested in being notified when there is new content, a flow should be constructed to inform the user reliably every time.

More user research may also be needed to determine how often content should be changed.

Project Learnings

Users want education, but only for the things they are interested in. Personalization and providing the user choices are repeating themes.
Users need to be told the value of the features they are using. This is especially true with features that build on or are extraneous to the base CGM function. Since there is a higher barrier for adoption for these features, their value must be clearly communicated to the user.
Users are interested in utilizing features, but need help discovering them. Many users are not automatically active users, and thus need additional prompting in order to discover the features of interest to them.

Conclusion

This project was a great introduction to task-based user testing, concept visualization, and contextualizing the problem statement within the greater context of the problem space. As someone with Type 1 Diabetes myself, this project also had a personal significance; empathizing with a potential CGM user came easily, and allowed me to have great conversations with other CGM users which helped inform this design process.
Say hi!
Elisa Fang
Los Angeles, CA & San Ramon, CA
elisafanged@gmail.com
"If you're not interested, you're not interesting."
Iris Apfel
Last updated December 2023.