Considerations for the Design and Implementation of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: Scoping Review (Preprint)

Osmanlliu, Esli; Rafie, Edmond; Bédard, Sylvain; Paquette, Jesseca; Gore, Geneviève; Pomey, Marie‐Pascale

doi:10.2196/preprints.27102

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Since the date of release 2100 New Yorkers with the COVID Alert NY app tested positive for COVID-19. Approximately 700 of those users marked their status as positive COVID test in the application; their actions triggered 630 exposure notifications to other application users per Erin Silk (Osmanlliu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Case Study New Yorkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy Considerations of Location Tracking in Social Welfare Applications

Copeland, Jr.,

Jones,

Kharvi

et al. 2023

JSIS

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COVID-19 rapidly spread worldwide starting in December 2019, reaching its peak during the first quarter of 2021. As of October 28, 2021, COVID-19 deaths have surpassed 5,000,000 globally, with the highest death tolls in the United States, Brazil, and India. Governments scrambled to combat the pandemic using various techniques, including social welfare and pandemic tracking applications. This scramble accelerated the progress of the digital revolution through the proliferation of numerous social welfare applications worldwide. These applications are used for tracking vaccination status, contact tracing, social distancing, symptoms, and positive cases, as well as for enforcing quarantine and lockdown policies and detecting violations. Artificial intelligence and other technology advances raise concerns about security, privacy, and equity since many of these applications work with personal information from one’s health records, employment information, and location data. This paper examines such applications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the United States. Develop best practices that can be followed to enhance the security of and equitable access to social applications.

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Section: Case Study New Yorkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy Considerations of Location Tracking in Social Welfare Applications

Copeland, Jr.,

Jones,

Kharvi

et al. 2023

JSIS

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The Effect of Persuasive Design on the Adoption of Exposure Notification Apps: Quantitative Study Based on COVID Alert

Oyibo¹,

Morita²

2022

JMIR Form Res

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Background The adoption of contact tracing apps worldwide has been low. Although considerable research has been conducted on technology acceptance, little has been done to show the benefit of incorporating persuasive principles. Objective This research aimed to investigate the effect of persuasive features in the COVID Alert app, created by Health Canada, by focusing on the no-exposure status, exposure status, and diagnosis report interfaces. Methods We conducted a study among 181 Canadian residents, including 65 adopters and 116 nonadopters. This study was based on screenshots of the 3 interfaces, of which each comprised a persuasive design and a control design. The persuasive versions of the first two interfaces supported self-monitoring (of exposure levels), and that of the third interface supported social learning (about how many other users have reported their diagnosis). The 6 screenshots were randomly assigned to 6 groups of participants to provide feedback on perceived persuasiveness and adoption willingness. Results A multivariate repeated-measure ANOVA showed that there is an interaction among interface, app design, and adoption status regarding the perceived persuasiveness of the interfaces. This resulted in a 2-way ANOVA for each interface. For the no-exposure interface, there was an interaction between adoption status and app design. Among adopters, there was no significant difference P=.31 between the persuasive design (mean 5.36, SD 1.63) and the control design (mean 5.87, SD 1.20). However, among nonadopters, there was an effect of app design (P<.001), with participants being more motivated by the persuasive design (mean 5.37, SD 1.30) than by the control design (mean 4.57, SD 1.19). For the exposure interface, adoption status had a main effect (P<.001), with adopters (mean 5.91, SD 1.01) being more motivated by the designs than nonadopters (mean 4.96, SD 1.43). For the diagnosis report interface, there was an interaction between adoption status and app design. Among nonadopters, there was no significant difference P=.99 between the persuasive design (mean 4.61, SD 1.84) and the control design (mean 4.77, SD 1.21). However, among adopters, there was an effect of app design (P=.006), with participants being more likely to report their diagnosis using the persuasive design (mean 6.00, SD 0.97) than using the control design (mean 5.03, SD 1.22). Finally, with regard to willingness to download the app, pairwise comparisons showed that nonadopters were more likely to adopt the app after viewing the persuasive version of the no-exposure interface (13/21, 62% said yes) and the diagnosis report interface (12/17, 71% said yes) than after viewing the control versions (3/17, 18% and 7/16, 44%, respectively, said yes). Conclusions Exposure notification apps are more likely to be effective if equipped with persuasive features. Incorporating self-monitoring into the no-exposure status interface and social learning into the diagnosis report interface can increase adoption by >30%.

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The Effect of Persuasive Design on the Adoption of Exposure Notification Apps: A Case Study of COVID Alert (Preprint)

Oyibo¹,

Morita²

2021

Preprint

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BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in the first quarter of 2020, necessitated the imposition of public health restrictions and the shutting down of the global economy. To slow down the spread of the coronavirus, governments worldwide rolled out nationwide contact tracing apps (CTAs) to notify people that may have been exposed to COVID-19. The emergence of new variants of COVID-19, which can cause breakthrough infections, necessitate the continued use of CTAs. However, the uptake of these apps has been low and slow worldwide. Some experts have argued that the low adoption rate of CTAs can be attributed to their minimalist design and lack of motivational features, trust- and privacy-related issues aside. However, there is little to no research to show that the incorporation of persuasive principles in the design of CTAs has the potential of increasing their effectiveness and adoption. OBJECTIVE The objective of this article is to uncover how the persuasive design of CTAs influences their effectiveness by focusing on three key user interfaces: no-exposure status, exposure status, and diagnosis report. METHODS We conducted an empirical study on Amazon Mechanical Turk to investigate the effect of persuasive design in CTAs using the Government of Canada’s exposure notification app (“COVID Alert”) as a case study. Our study is based on 204 participants (comprising adopters and non-adopters) resident in Canada and two app designs: persuasive and control. RESULTS Regarding the willingness to download the COVID Alert app, our three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows there is an interaction between adoption status and app design. Among adopters, there is no significant difference between the persuasive and the control design. However, among non-adopters, there is an effect of app design (p < 0·001), with participants being more likely to download the app using the persuasive design (M = 5·37) than the control design (M = 4·57). Similarly, regarding the intention to report COVID-19 diagnosis, there is an interaction between adoption status and app design. Among non-adopters, there is no significant difference between the persuasive design and the control design. However, among adopters, there is an effect of app design (p < 0·01), with participants being more likely to report their diagnosis using the persuasive design (M = 6·00) than the control design (M = 5·03). CONCLUSIONS The results show that non-adopters are more likely to download the persuasive version of a CTA (equipped with self-monitoring) than the control version. Moreover, adopters are more likely to report their COVID-19 diagnosis using the persuasive version of a CTA (equipped with social-learning) than the control version. Overall, the percentage of non-adopters willing to download the COVID-Alert app from the app stores increased by over 10% due to the incorporation of persuasive features in its interface design. In a nutshell, the study shows that CTAs are more likely to be effective and adopted if equipped with persuasive features.

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Considerations for the Design and Implementation of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps: Scoping Review (Preprint)

Cited by 4 publications

References 50 publications

Privacy Considerations of Location Tracking in Social Welfare Applications

Privacy Considerations of Location Tracking in Social Welfare Applications

The Effect of Persuasive Design on the Adoption of Exposure Notification Apps: Quantitative Study Based on COVID Alert

The Effect of Persuasive Design on the Adoption of Exposure Notification Apps: A Case Study of COVID Alert (Preprint)

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