Usability Evaluation of Alzheimer’s mHealth Applications for Caregivers

Abstract

As the sixth leading cause of death within the United States, Alzheimer’s disease affects over 15 million caregivers administering home-based care for loved ones having this illness. The rise in advocacy for mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) to facilitate chronic disease management presents a tremendous platform for Alzheimer’s caregivers to utilize mHealth apps while administering care. Although mHealth apps serve as potential healthcare interventions, little is known regarding their usability. This study will advance knowledge on the apps’ usability and provide user-centered design guidelines for future app development. Keyword searches in Apple and Google App Stores yielded 43 Alzheimer’s apps. Card sorting then generated three levels of categories for app classification. Stratified random sampling produced a sample size of six apps selected for review. Lastly, a heuristic evaluation of the six sampled apps was conducted according to Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics. User-centered design guidelines were constructed to remedy problematic usability issues for the intended users of these apps.

User feedback and usability testing of an online training and support program for dementia carers

“…Usability issues identified in this study were diverse and to a certain extent contradict some of Nielsen's ‘heuristics’ – i.e., recognized interface design and usability principles - including visibility of the system's status; user control and freedom; as well as consistency and standards ( Nielsen and Molich, 1990 ). Similar contradictions were reported in other studies on eHealth/mHealth solutions ( Cristancho-Lacroix et al, 2014 ; Hassan, 2020 ; Brown and Nam Kim, 2018 ). A high success on tasks together with positive participants' appraisals about the program's ease of use, suggest that most usability issues are not severe, while must be addressed for a more satisfying user experience and efficient navigation.…”

Development of a Mobile App for Self-Care Against COVID-19 Using the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) Model: Methodological Study

“…We asked 5 experts in the field of user experience design and development of mobile health (mHealth) apps for assistance. They ranked the prototype using Jacob Nielsen’s 10 general principles of severity for evaluating interactive design, which use a 5-point scale [ 27 , 28 ]: 0 (“I do not agree that this is a usability issue”), 1 (“Not to be fixed unless extra time is available for the project”), 2 (“This should be fixed, but at the lowest priority”), 3 (“Must be fixed, so it should be given high priority”), and 4 (“This must be fixed before the product can be released”).…”

Felhasználóközpontú szempontok különböző módú megjelenése a szoftverfejlesztésben: Kvalitatív kutatás a hazai cégek gyakorlatáról

“…A felhasználóközpontú szempontok fontosságának felismerése óta a témához köthetően számos publikáció jelent meg, de ezeknek a munkáknak a nagy része a téma elméleti hátterének az ismertetésével foglalkozik, így például az emberi tényezők számbavételének a fontosságát tárgyalja (Backhaus et al 2014). A legújabb empirikus kutatások pedig egy-egy konkrét módszertan (például használhatósági vizsgálat), vagy eszköz (például hangos gondol kodás) gyakorlati használatának a lehetőségeit és korlátait ismertetik speciális szoftverekhez kapcsolható alkalmazási területekhez köthetően (May 2018, Brown & Kim 2018. Nemzetközi szinten ennél átfogóbb, a jelenlegihez hasonló kutatásról csak Andersson (2012) munkája nyomán beszélhetünk, amely a UX területhez köthető tervezési irányelvek vállalati implementálásának a kérdéseit vizsgálja hasonló eszközökkel.…”