FreeStyle Libre 3/3 Plus Sensor Applicator

👋 A Personal Beginning

It started in my apartment living room. My roommate had just received his Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) kit. He was excited but also visibly unsure.

“Where do I punch this in? Muscle or fat? What if it bleeds?”

This wasn’t just a user onboarding moment—it was a moment of fear. I watched him fumble through the manual, try to line up the sensor, then jump back in hesitation. When he finally inserted it, it bled more than expected. He panicked. Later that week, the sensor came off while he was sleeping.

This emotional rollercoaster sparked my curiosity:

How does the CGM system actually support users? Where does it succeed—and where does it fail?

🔍 What I Did

As a UX researcher and designer, I saw an opportunity to study this experience in depth. This is a product analysis of a popular Continuous Glucose Monitor system. I studied the CGM experience using 3 methods:

🧠 Reflection: Watching a First-Time User

Over the course of a few weeks, I observed my roommate’s experience—step by step. The insights were revealing.

• The unboxing moment was overwhelming. The manual was dense. Diagrams were unclear about exactly where to place the sensor. There was no reassurance.
• The insertion was stressful. He wasn’t sure if the device should go into muscle or fat. One attempt led to visible bleeding; another caused a skin boil. Later, the sensor detached while he was changing clothes. Fear lingered: “What if this falls off again while I’m out?”
• The app experience, surprisingly, was smoother. Bluetooth pairing was fast, and the note-taking feature for logging meals and symptoms was well-received. But it lacked emotional support. There was no guidance on what to do if something went wrong.