JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The misuse of antibiotics represents a global public health issue that fosters bacterial resistances and jeopardizes generational health. The development of validated tools such as online courses and mobile app to enhance the clinical decision in upper respiratory infections are of great importance to reduce the inadequate use of antibiotics in these situations.

Objective:

Design and validate a mobile application to assist and give clinical support in the diagnosis of upper respiratory problems. We hypothesize about the benefits that this tool can bring to healthcare delivering and to enhance the clinical decision, and assess its adequacy and usability.

Methods:

After a co-design approach that brought together professionals in interface design and experts in pharmacology and pharmacoepidemiology, the mobile application interface was evaluated through peer-review sessions held by interface design professionals on a heuristic-based survey. The reviewers accessed a high-fidelity interactive mock-up of the interface and filled in a questionnaire to assess “Layout and Visual Design” and “Navigation and Tasks” dimensions. The resulting feedback of this evaluation supported the re-design of the primary interface that was once again assessed by two of the previously mentioned reviewers.

Results:

With 4 as the highest score, the interface received 3,16/3,2 (mean/median mean) values for “Layout and Visual Design” and about 3,43/3,51 for “Navigation and Tasks” (respectively), an overall positive evaluation. The open-ended commentaries allowed to better understand the reviewers’ specific recommendations. Throughout this section, about 0,98 comments per parameter where registered, reflecting a high effectiveness level of the chosen parameters in raising potential problems. The resultant beta version of the interface, addressing the majority of the detected problems, was further assessed by two of the previous reviewers, validating the new design. Future tests with physicians and pharmacists will help assess credibility and user experience dimensions.

Conclusions:

Our study has revealed that the designed interface is easy to interpret and use. Peer-reviewers raised important issues that could be easily fixed and positively re-assessed. As results, the study managed to produce a new tool for interface usability assessment and a set of recommendations for developing mobile interfaces for Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) in the scope of upper respiratory problems.