Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 1, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: May 2, 2018 - Jun 27, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 31, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Context-sensitive ecological momentary assessment: Application of user-centered design for improving user satisfaction and engagement during self-report
ABSTRACT
Background:
Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) can be a useful tool for collecting real time behavioral data in studies of health and health behavior. However, EMA administered through mobile technology can be burdensome and it tends to suffer from suboptimal user engagement, particularly in low health literacy populations.
Objective:
To report a case study involving the design and evaluation of a mobile EMA tool that supports context-sensitive EMA reporting of location and social situations accompanying eating and sedentary behavior.
Methods:
An iterative, user-centered design process with obese, middle-aged women seeking care in a safety-net health system was used to identify the preferred format of self-report measures, and the look, feel and interaction of the mobile EMA tool. A single arm feasibility field trial with 21 participants receiving 12 prompts each day for momentary self-reports over a 4-week period (336 total prompts per participant) was used to determine user satisfaction with interface quality and user engagement, operationalized as response rate. A second trial among 38 different participants randomized to receive or not a feature designed to improve engagement was conducted.
Results:
The feasibility trial results showed high interface satisfaction and engagement, with an average response rate of 50% over 4 weeks. Qualitative feedback pointed to the need for auditory alerts. We settled on three alerts at 10-minute intervals to accompany each EMA reporting prompt. The second trial testing this feature showed a statistically significant increase in response rate among participants randomized to receive repeat auditory alerts versus those not (60% vs 40%).
Conclusions:
This paper reviews the design research and a set of design constraints that may be considered in the creation of mobile EMA interfaces personalized to users’ preferences. Novel aspects of the study include the involvement of low health literacy adults in design research, the capture of data on time, place, and social context of eating and sedentary behavior, and reporting prompts tailored to an individual’s location and schedule. Clinical Trial: NCT03083964
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.