JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The patient experience in emergency departments remains often suboptimal and can be a source of stress, particularly in the pediatric setting. In an attempt to support patients and their families before, during and after their visit to a pediatric emergency department, a mobile health (mHealth) app was developed by a multidisciplinary team based on patient-centered care principles.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction) of a new mHealth app, Infokids, by potential end users through usability testing.

Methods:

The app was assessed through an in-laboratory, video-recorded evaluation where participants had to execute 9 goal-oriented tasks, ranging from account creation to the reception of a diagnostic sheet at the end of the emergency care episode. Effectiveness was measured based on the task completion rate, efficiency on time-on-task, and satisfaction on users’ answers to the system usability scale questionnaire. Think-aloud usability sessions were also transcribed and analyzed. Usability problems were rated for their severity according to the Nielsen severity scale and categorized following Bastien and Scapin’s ergonomic criteria.

Results:

Seventeen parents participated in the study. The overall completion rate was 97%. Overall, they reported good effectiveness with the task successfully completed in 88% of cases (95% CI 83%-93%). Each task, with the exception of the first, created difficulties for some participants, but did not prevent their completion for some of them. Users reported an overall good-to-excellent perceived usability of the app. However, the ergonomic evaluation identified 81 occurrences of usability problems. Among these, 50% were serious as their severity was rated as either major or catastrophic and indicated areas for app improvements. Following suggested usability improvements by participants, mitigation measures were listed to further improve the app and avoid barriers to its adoption.

Conclusions:

Usability of the InfoKids app was evaluated as good-to-excellent by users. Areas of improvement have been identified and mitigation measures have been proposed to inform its development towards a universal app for all emergency department patients visiting a digitalized institution. Its contribution could also be useful in paving the way for further research on mobile apps aimed at supporting and accompanying patients in their care episodes as research in this area is scarce.