Spanish Version of the System Usability Scale for the Assessment of Electronic Tools: Development and Validation (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The mHealth concept encompasses the use of mobile devices for clinical counseling. The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a common metric used to assess the usability of a system. The SUS was initially developed in English, and it would need to be updated and adapted to languages and regional contexts in which the electronic tools are developed. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to translate, culturally, adapt, and validate the original English version of the SUS into a new Spanish version. METHODS The translation process included forward and backward translation, forward translations was made by two native Spanish speakers, who spoke English as their second language, and backward translation was made by an English native speaker. The Spanish SUS questionnaire was validated by 10 experts in mobile app development. The face validity of the questionnaire was tested on 10 mobile phone users, and finally, the reliability testing was probed in 88 electronic app users. RESULTS The content validity index of the new Spanish SUS was good based on the rating of the relevance of items of 0.92. The questionnaire was easy to understand based on the face validity index of 0.94. According to Cronbach’s alpha test 0.81 IC95% (0.74 – 0.86), the translated scale is s a reliable tool for the assessment of the usability of electronic tools. CONCLUSIONS The new Spanish SUS questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to assess the usability of electronic tools for Spanish users,