Younger children (under 9 years old) with type-1 diabetes are often very passive in the management of their condition and can face difficulties in accessing basic information about their condition. This can make transitioning to self-management in later years very challenging. Previous research has mostly focused on educational interventions for older children who have literacy skills. In order to create an educational tool that can effectively support the education of younger children with diabetes and be feasible for adoption in the local context, we conducted a multiphase and multi-stakeholder human-centred design process.;The process entailed a review of the relevant literature, in-context qualitative enquiries for requirements gathering, an iterative design process with stakeholder participation, multiple prototyping and evaluation stages, development and a final large-scale evaluation. The result of this process is an interactive digital tool that illustrates diabetes concepts in an age-appropriate way with the use of tangible toys as input devices. The tool was evaluated in-context with children, parents and clinicians against the stakeholders' requirements.;The results showed the effectiveness of the tool in enabling clinicians to convey the educational message in a fun, age-appropriate and memorable way.The results also informed about the feasibility of the tool to be adopted in standard practice. This thesis illustrates in detail the aforementioned process and its results and also syntheses the findings in order to inform more generally the design and development of other educational tools for younger children with complex educational needs.
Date of Award | 28 Jul 2020 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
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Supervisor | Marilyn Lennon (Supervisor) & Ian Ruthven (Supervisor) |
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