Designing trust
into diabetes care
The SugarIQ app had to do more than show data — it had to make people feel safe.
In 2013, my daughter Sophia was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She was three years old.
When IBM partnered with Medtronic, I didn't just want to be on this project — I needed to be.
I had three years of diabetes care under my belt. I knew what it felt like to watch someone you love manage a disease that never takes a day off. That experience shaped every design decision I made.
The objective was to create an application paired with Medtronic insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. Connected to Watson AI, it would provide insights based on user data — and eventually predict a hypoglycemic event up to three hours in advance.
Diabetes is complicated. The last thing we wanted to do was add another step.
Designing for a disease that never takes a day off.
- Predict dangerous events before they happen
- Earn trust in a high-stakes health context
- Avoid adding burden to already busy users
Small team. Personal stakes.
Past my own experience.
I recruited sponsor users, flew to Northridge CA to meet the Medtronic team, interviewed doctors and nurse practitioners at the Joslin Clinic, and attended a JDRF conference to speak directly with people living with diabetes.
Understanding that I was only one user type was critical — I couldn't let my personal experience become a bias. Real research with real people was the only way through.
Lead Designer · IBM iX
Warm, never clinical.
After three weeks of concept generation, we landed on an app with a social media-like stream showing inputs, insights, live data, and historical data. Watson AI generates plain-language insights users can actually act on.
The live CGM reading is always prominent. Historical data is filterable and sortable. Every decision rewarded the user with something valuable — never just another task.
Insights in a voice that feels human, not clinical.
The stream view shows live CGM data, Watson-generated insights, and behavioral inputs in one scrollable feed. Every piece of information earns its place — nothing is shown that doesn't help the user take action.
Before the pixels — early thinking
Four pages from my sketchbook spanning the project from day one in Northridge through concept exploration. Not everything shipped. That's the point of sketching.
Northridge, CA — January 26, 2015. First day with the Medtronic team. Notes on flows, user types, FDA considerations, and the core concept taking shape.
Exploring the stream. What happens when there's no message? How does Watson speak to someone having a rough night?
Trends and events. Concepts for glucose history and how the app surfaces high and low events without overwhelming the user.
Vision concepts. Carb tracking, social history, location-aware eating features. Not all of it shipped. That's the point of sketching.
We didn't ship a tracker. We shipped a companion.
SugarIQ launched as a companion app for Medtronic's Guardian Connect CGM system. Using Watson AI to deliver personalized insights, it gave users something they'd never had before — a digital companion that could predict low blood sugar events and offer guidance in plain, human language.
What stayed.
This was the most stressful project I've ever shipped — because it's someone's life. The work didn't have research funding, so I ran research anyway, on my own time. Not for something this consequential.
SugarIQ eventually folded into Medtronic's next-generation diabetes companion app — the work my team did carried into the product that replaced it. Not every project gets that.
What I brought to the Medtronic team that no one else could: a caregiver's perspective. Living alongside someone who manages diabetes isn't the same as having it — it's a different outlook, and the design needed both. That instinct — designing for the people next to the user, not just the user — is something I still bring to every project.