JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Women in midlife are vulnerable to developing cardiovascular disease, particularly those with conditions such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Physical activity (PA) can reduce this risk. However, previous efforts to promote PA in this population are modestly effective, and less than 50% of women in midlife meet recommended PA guidelines. Greater attention to social influences on PA behavior in interventions may be useful, particularly social support and social comparison processes. Activating these processes with digital tools can provide easy access that is flexible to the needs of women in midlife.

Objective:

This report describes the user-centered design processes of developing and evaluating a personalized and adaptive web application, tailored to the social needs of women in midlife. The goal of this multistage study was to gather feedback from the population of interest prior to and during the design process.

Methods:

This research occurred in 4 stages: (1) The first and second author (behavioral and computer science experts, respectively) developed technical specifications, informed by their experience with the population of interest. (2) We collected feedback on potential content for the web application using both interviews (n = 5, MAge = 47.4, MBMI = 35.3 kg/m2) and surveys (n = 5, MAge = 51, MBMI = 32.7) with women in midlife. We used their feedback to inform support messages and peer profiles (i.e., sources of social comparison information). (3) Nine members of the behavioral science team and 3 testers unfamiliar with the web application completed internal testing. (4) We conducted naturalistic functionality testing with women in midlife (n = 5, MAge = 50 years, MBMI = 30.1 kg/m2) who each used the web application as intended for 4 days and provided feedback at the end of this period.

Results:

Iterative storyboard development resulted in specifications for alpha prototype programming. We used content feedback to select and refine the support messages and peer profiles to be added to the site. The following two rounds of internal testing resulted in the identification of bugs and other problems with the web application’s functioning and full data collection procedure. Problems that were addressed or logged for future consideration. Naturalistic functionality testing revealed minimal further problems and showed that women tended to select different content across days.

Conclusions:

A multidisciplinary and user-centered design approach led to a personalized, adaptive web application tailored to the social needs of women in midlife. Testing with these women demonstrate the feasibility and acceptability of the new application and support further development toward its use in daily life. We describe several potential uses of the web application and next steps for development. We also discuss lessons learned and offer recommendations for future collaborations between behavioral and computer scientists to develop similar tools.