Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 10, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 14, 2018 - Nov 9, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 12, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Vital Challenges for Health and Wellness Mobile Applications – A case study in Asia Pacific
ABSTRACT
Background:
By 2019, there will be an estimated 4.68-billion mobile phone users globally. Along with this comes an unprecedented proliferation in mobile Apps, a plug and play product positioned to improve lives in innumerable ways. Within this landscape, medical Apps will see a 41% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2015-2020, but paradoxically, prevailing evidence indicates declining downloads of such Apps and decreasing “stickiness†with the intended end users.
Objective:
As usability is a prerequisite for success of health and wellness mobile Apps, this paper aims to provide insights and suggestions for improving the mHealth App usability experience, by exploring the degree of alignment between mHealth Insiders and consumers.
Methods:
A need gap was identified in past mHealth research approaches, where few mixed-methods studies have been performed. A customized mixed-research data synchronization was used to align (i) categorical data from qualitative mHealth insider interviews and (ii) numerical data from a quantitative consumer survey, in order to identify common usability themes and areas of divergence.
Results:
Of the five usability attributes described in Nielsen’s model, Satisfaction ranked as the top attribute for both mHealth Insiders and consumers. Satisfaction refers to user-likability, comfort and pleasure. Also, five out of nine mHealth Insiders’ top concerns are similar to consumers. On the other hand, consumers did not grade themes such as intuitiveness – deemed vital by mHealth Insiders – as important. Other concerns by the consumers include in-App charging and advertisements.
Conclusions:
Strengthening the connectivity between suppliers and users (through the designed research tool) will contribute to increased uptake of mHealth Apps. This study supports and has also contributed to the existing pool of mixed-research studies. In addition, this work has generated several ideas (e.g. sustainable business model Apps) and initiated new avenues of inquiry (e.g. dominant category players to lead future development) for future validation. Clinical Trial: No Clinical Trial
Citation
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Copyright
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