How a designer/developer responds when he finds out a close family member has type-1 diabetes.
Timely and accessible data is important to many people, for many reasons. For an insulin-dependent diabetic (type 1) patient, accurate glucose data is the difference between life or death. The current state of devices used by type-1 diabetics is dated, to put it mildly. Typically, data is trapped in proprietary silos, inaccessible for analysis and use by patients and caregivers.
I was intrigued by a group of “hackers” in the Nightscout (see http://www.nightscout.info) community that have been working hard to unlock that medical data, so I got involved.
I created an app called Nightscouter which leverages data created by Nightscout and its foundation. I wanted to display continuous glucose monitor (CGM) information stored in the cloud on Apple iOS devices like the iPhone and Apple Watch.
Nightscouter was/is the first project in which I solely crafted and delivered the strategy, design, development, testing, marketing, and customer service from start to finish. It allowed me to not only help a community of users, but it expanded my knowledge of Swift and Apple’s various platforms.
