Background Caregiving and self-care are challenging for Chinese immigrants in the United States due to limited accessible support and resources. Few interventions exist to assist Chinese immigrant caregivers in better performing self-care. To address this gap in the literature, our team developed the Care Me Too app to engage Chinese immigrant caregivers in self-care and conducted a user experience test to assess its usability and acceptability. Objective This paper aims to report the results of the app’s usability and acceptability testing with Chinese immigrant caregivers and to solicit participants’ feedback of the app design and functions. Methods A total of 22 Mandarin-speaking Chinese caregivers participated in the study, which consisted of 2 parts: the in-lab testing and the 1-week at-home testing. In-depth face-to-face interviews and follow-up phone interviews were used to assess user experience of the app’s usability and acceptability and to solicit feedback for app design and functions. Directed content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Results Among the 22 participants, the average age was 60.5 (SD 8.1) years, ranging from 46 to 80 years; 17 (77%) participants were women and 14 (64%) had an associate degree or higher. Participants reported uniformly positive ratings of the usability and acceptability of the app and provided detailed suggestions for app improvement. We generated guidelines for mobile health (mHealth) app designs targeting immigrant caregivers, including weighing flexibility versus majority preferences, increasing text sizes, using colors effectively, providing engaging and playful visual designs and functions, simplifying navigation, simplifying the log-in process, improving access to and the content on the help document, designing functions to cater to the population’s context, and ensuring offline access. Conclusions The main contribution of this study is the improved understanding of Chinese caregivers’ user experiences with a language-appropriate mHealth app for a population that lacks accessible caregiving and self-care resources and support. It is recommended that future researchers and app designers consider the proposed guidelines when developing mHealth apps for their population to enhance user experience and harness mHealth’s value.

Caregiving and self-care are challenging for Chinese immigrants in the U.S. due to limited accessible support and resources. The team developed a Care Me Too app for engaging Chinese immigrant caregivers in self-care and conducted a user-experience test to assess its usability and acceptability. The aims of this paper are to report the testing results and develop guidelines to support mHealth app design for immigrant caregiver populations. Twenty-two Chinese caregivers participated in the test, which consisted of two parts: in-lab testing and one-week at-home testing. In-depth face-to-face interviews and follow-up phone interviews were used to test the app’s usability and acceptability and solicit participants’ feedback for app design and functions. Directed content analysis was used to analyze testing transcripts. Participants reported uniformly positive ratings of usability and acceptability of the app and provided detailed suggestions for app improvement. We generated some mHealth app design guidelines, including weighing flexibility vs. targeting majority preferences, increasing text sizes, using colors effectively, providing engaging and playful visual designs and functions, simplifying navigation, simplifying login process, design functions to cater to the population’s context, etc. We concluded that culturally and linguistically appropriate mHealth apps are appealing to immigrant caregivers for health promotion.

BACKGROUND Caregiving and self-care are challenging for Chinese immigrants in the U.S. due to limited accessible support and resources. Few interventions existed to assist Chinese immigrant caregivers to better perform self-care. To fill the void in the literature, the team developed a Care Me Too app for engaging Chinese immigrant caregivers in self-care and conducted a user-experience test to assess its usability and acceptability. OBJECTIVE The aims of this paper are to report the user experience testing results and develop guidelines to support mHealth app design for immigrant caregiver populations. METHODS Twenty-two Chinese caregivers participated in the study, which consisted of two parts: in-lab testing and one-week at-home testing. In-depth face-to-face interviews and follow-up phone interviews were used to test the app’s usability and acceptability and solicit participants’ feedback for app design and functions. Directed content analysis was used to analyze testing transcripts. RESULTS Participants reported uniformly positive ratings of usability and acceptability of the app and provided detailed suggestions for app improvement. We generated some mHealth app design guidelines targeting immigrant caregivers, including weighing flexibility vs. targeting majority preferences, increasing text sizes, using colors effectively, providing engaging and playful visual designs and functions, simplifying navigation, simplifying login process, improving access to and the content of help document, designing functions to cater to the population’s context, and ensuring offline access. CONCLUSIONS Culturally and linguistically appropriate mHealth apps are appealing to immigrant caregivers for health promotion.