Zone wins at Third Sector awards

Following a nomination earlier this year, our Diabetes UK team returned triumphant from the Third Sector Excellence Awards 2012, claiming the Best Use of Digital Media award for their groundbreaking Diabetes iPhone app.

Central to the app’s success was its innovative use of Facebook – in particular the Diabetes UK Facebook community – as a research environment and design-consultation forum.

 The community's valuable input, feedback and testing helped to refine and improve the app all the way through to launch, when, again, they were on hand to help spread the word to people with diabetes all over the world.

The results were extremely pleasing. Within six months of launch, the application had been downloaded more than 18,000 times and had an average user rating of 4.5/5 from App Store customers.

The Diabetes UK Tracker app has also since been officially endorsed by the NHS, meaning GPs can recommend our solution to help patients all over the country manage their condition more effectively.

Zone won despite stiff competition from the likes of Save the Children and the NSPCC’s Childline. In presenting the award, judge Caroline Diehl, chief executive of the Media Trust, praised the app for being "so focused and simple, yet ingenious". 

“I loved the way they tested the product with Facebook users," she added.

You can download the Diabetes UK Tracker app on iTunes.

This was just the latest in an incredible year of achievements for Zone. To learn more, check out our other award wins.