Diabetes Widgit Symbol Resources

The Warwick Diabetes Care Researcher Group worked together with Warwick University and the George Eliot Diabetes Care Team in partnership with Widgit's Accessible Design Services to create accessible, symbol-supported education materials to help people living with Diabetes who may struggle with reading written information to understand the condition.

Diabetes Symbols

In partnership with Warwick University, Warwick Diabetes Care Research User Group and the George Eliot Diabetes Care Team, Widgit created a set of 32 specially-developed symbols which illustrate words and concepts relating to Diabetes and healthy living. The Diabetes symbols illustrate concepts such as 'insulin', 'glucose monitoring', 'heart problems', 'saturated fat' and 'check blood pressure'.

These symbols proved to be a huge support for people living with Diabetes in understanding how to manage the condition who may otherwise have difficulty accessing the relevant information - such as people with a learning impairment or communication challenge, or those with English as an Additional Language (EAL).

By seeing a visual representations of a concept, even confident readers can find it easier to understand this information.

These symbols can be downloaded for free and used within InPrint, to create your own Diabetes information resources!

'ABC' Diabetes Cards

In order to ensure that all people with Diabetes are able to access information which would help them to learn about their condition, Widgit also developed a set of accessible educational resources which featured these new symbols.

These resources were based upon the Diabetes Alphabet Strategy that the George Eliot Diabetes Support Group had previously devised.

This strategy was created to help people living with Diabetes to understand specific Diabetes issues relating to letters of the alphabet - for example, 'A' is for 'Advice, 'E' is for 'Eyes'.

For each of these topics, two A4 information sheets were created - a symbol-supported version and a simply-written text version - which were designed to be printed out back-to-back and laminated.

Presenting information in this way provided an inclusive resource, which could provide accessible information for both confident and struggling readers, helping everyone to understand the condition.

Download the ABC cards for Diabetes featuring Widgit Symbols

Diabetes symbol project description from Dr Hilary Hearnshaw