Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Sep 2, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 22, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Prototype development of mobile elements within online physical activity interventions for adults aged over 50: applying a systematic design protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Only a minority of adults over 50 meet physical activity (PA) guidelines of the WHO. eHealth interventions are proven effective tools to help this population increase their PA levels in the short-term, among which two interventions developed by our own research group. To increase effects in the longer term, three different mobile elements were added separately to the interventions, being an activity tracker, an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) program and a chatbot to our existing eHealth interventions. Additional aims were to increase use and decrease drop-out rates. A systematic design protocol with involvement of the target population was used to guide this process.
Objective:
The iterative development, evaluation and adaptation of three renewed prototypes of both the Active Plus and I Move intervention by separately adding three mobile elements on top of these computer-based programs.
Methods:
Following a systematic design protocol, both interventions were renewed. Literature searches regarding the mobile elements were performed. Based on these results, the first prototypes were developed. After conducting interviews among the target population, the prototypes were adapted. Subsequently, pilottests among the target population were performed and a sample of participants was interviewed afterwards. Based on these results the prototypes were fine-tuned.
Results:
The literature searches and interviews provided important recommendations on usability and preferences of the target population for the development process. The pilottests showed that the mobile elements score moderate to good on usability (average SUS-scores of 52.2 to 82.2), enjoyment and satisfaction (average scores ranging from 5.1 to 8.1 on a scale of 1-10). The activity tracker received the best scores, followed by EMI, followed by the chatbot. Based on the pilottest findings, technical difficulties regarding EMI and chatbot could be solved which is expected to improve usability and appreciation.
Conclusions:
Based on the successfully completed prototype development phase and the resulting six prototypes (Active Plus or I Move including 1. activity tracker, 2. EMI, 3. chatbot), it can be concluded that the earlier developed systematic protocol was very useful for the purposes of this study. The effects of the renewed interventions will subsequently be evaluated by a randomized controlled trial.
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