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Approved Insulin storage survey

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Design_Tom_

Design_Tom_

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I am a product design student from Loughborough university and have chosen to design a storage device for temperature sensitive medicine (basically redesign a cool bag) for my final year project. I have created this survey to help me do user research for the project and would be very grateful if you could take a minute to fill it out (if you feel like leaving the two written answers blank because you don't know what to put that is fine!).

https://goo.gl/forms/jU4HzVB4TN1KlMg83

Thanks,
Tom
 
Design_Tom_ said:
I am a product design student from Loughborough university and have chosen to design a storage device for temperature sensitive medicine (basically redesign a cool bag) for my final year project. I have created this survey to help me do user research for the project and would be very grateful if you could take a minute to fill it out (if you feel like leaving the two written answers blank because you don't know what to put that is fine!).

https://goo.gl/forms/jU4HzVB4TN1KlMg83

Thanks,
Tom
Click to expand...
Done Good luck with project
 
Great idea - just finished answering your survey. Right now I dump all my meds in a small back pack - it would be nice to find something more subtle and practical Wonder if you could make a business out of it?
Good Luck!
 
Engineer88 said:
Are you benchmarking against the Frio bag? @Design_Tom_
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the support guys!

Yeah I am aware of the Frio products and I think they are probably market leader in the category in most respects. From what I can tell their main disadvantages are that they get damp and are only usable in a ventilated environment (i.e not inside a bag). Their biggest advantages are short recharge time and really simplistic design and relatively long period of use (Website says 45 Hours but reviews say longer than that).

For cool bags in general I would say their biggest problems are having to freeze the cooling elements (so long recharge time) and lack of insulation means they don't have a long period of use (probably about 12 hours). Also the freezing elements take up a lot of space making the bags potentially quite bulky - especially once you factor in the padding to stop the ice packs coming into direct contact with the insulin and freezing it. By far their biggest advantage is their low price point and they can be stored in luggage. Also people seem to like that some of them come with straps to help secure insulin in place.

Overall I think there is room for improvement in producing an insulin storage product that can be kept anywhere (problem with Frio) and last for up to 3-4 days before requiring 'recharging' (problem with cool bags). Also I think more consideration could be put into combining storage of pens/insulin vials and other insulin related equipment; although 50% of people answered: "I like to separate my insulin and equipment".

From the replies I've got so far other features I could consider implementing are internal temperature monitor (seems very useful), alarm if temp gets too high and "Time lapse since insulin was last taken" (this could be possible).

I am just about to start concept development for this project so will try to keep you up to date and hopefully get some useful feedback on the product direction. If you have any opinions on my analysis of current products please let me know!

Thanks,
Tom
 
Design_Tom_ said:
Their biggest advantages are short recharge time and really simplistic design and relatively long period of use (Website says 45 Hours but reviews say longer than that).
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Much longer, more like 4-5 days in my experience Tom.

Although the Frio Wallet is a simplistic design it's effective at keeping insulin cool, initially I was put off by the price but I've had my wallet for around 6 years now and it's still working fine :)

Again good luck with the project and it would be great if you could keep us informed on your progress.
 
Hi,

The result to the question: How do you store your insulin and equipment? intrigues me. 60% of people answer: "I like to separate my insulin and equipment".

Is this because you separate your insulin and equipment in different pockets/compartments of the same product or you have them in separate products? If so, why do you keep them in separate products? (I feel like I may have overlooked something obvious).

Thanks for help so far, I've got 27 responses!
 
Design_Tom_ said:
Hi,

The result to the question: How do you store your insulin and equipment? intrigues me. 60% of people answer: "I like to separate my insulin and equipment".

Is this because you separate your insulin and equipment in different pockets/compartments of the same product or you have them in separate products? If so, why do you keep them in separate products? (I feel like I may have overlooked something obvious).

Thanks for help so far, I've got 27 responses!
Click to expand...

Its not really feasible to keep an insulin pump with blood monitoring equipment - a pump is on your person the tester is in a bag. I have no need or intention to keep it all together. Are you diabetic Tom?
 
Engineer88 said:
Its not really feasible to keep an insulin pump with blood monitoring equipment - a pump is on your person the tester is in a bag. I have no need or intention to keep it all together. Are you diabetic Tom?
Click to expand...
No I am not diabetic, thanks for the response! Definitely put things into perspective.
 
Done
From an Australian point of view who would something smallish for day trips and larger for overseas trips and able to withstand temps from 0 to 45 C in the shade.
Wishing you the best of luck
 
So I was hoping to be able to present you with some early concepts about now but I'm not quite ready yet - maybe this Friday or latest next week Monday. However, I have made another really short survey to get some responses to see what features are most important to you for temperature controlled insulin storage: https://goo.gl/forms/JdzFBtVJOHlUHQds2.

I have split the survey into insulin pumps and insulin pens as I think the size requirements for the two are different - based on both how they are carried around and what is being stored in them (Insulin pens are bigger than I thought!).

Thanks for helping out again and I hope to present you some ideas soon!
 
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