Background Indoor air pollution is a well-known risk factor that triggers and exacerbates asthma, the most common pediatric chronic disease. Using a mobile app to monitor indoor air quality could be promising in engaging children in keeping their indoor air quality clean and healthy as secondary environmental prevention for asthma management. However, no app is available to allow children to monitor, assess, and improve their indoor air quality. Objective This study aims to design a mobile app that encourages children to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma conditions through a user-centered, iterative design approach. Methods We reviewed existing apps for indoor air quality monitoring or asthma management for children and conducted two sets of semistructured interviews with 12 children with asthma. We then iteratively created prototypes and evaluated and revised them. Results Participants raised a series of outstanding questions on the prototype features and content that described their needs and perspectives, which informed the final designs. Following the identified requirements and recommendations, we developed two versions of the app: AirBuddy for presenting concrete information for indoor air quality and AirPet for gamifying the practice of monitoring indoor air quality. Conclusions By following an iterative, user-centered design process, we developed two versions of an app to encourage children with asthma to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma condition. The user-centered design approach revealed two crucial aspects that require deeper consideration when creating a child-friendly app, including balancing brevity and expressivity and considering the longitudinal effects of gamification. As a next step, we plan to conduct a longitudinal deployment study to evaluate the real-world effects of our apps.

Background Indoor air quality is an important environmental factor that triggers and exacerbates asthma, the most common chronic disease in children. A mobile app to monitor indoor air quality could help occupants keep their indoor air quality clean. However, no app is available that allows children to monitor and improve their indoor air quality. Objective Previously, we conducted a series of user-centered design studies to identify user needs and design requirements toward creating a mobile app that helps children with asthma to engage in monitoring and improving indoor air quality as part of their asthma management. Based on the findings from these studies, we created AirBuddy, a child-friendly app that visualizes air quality indoors and outdoors. Methods This paper reports on the findings from a field deployment with 7 pediatric asthma patients, where we evaluated AirBuddy’s usability and usefulness in real-world settings by conducting weekly semistructured interviews for 8 weeks. Results All participants positively responded to the usefulness and usability of AirBuddy, which we believe is thanks to the iterative, user-centered design approach that allowed us to identify and address potential usability issues early on and throughout the design process. Conclusions This project contributes to the field of mHealth app design for children by demonstrating how a user-centered design process can lead to the development of digital devices that are more acceptable and relevant to target users’ needs.

BACKGROUND Indoor air pollution is a well-known risk factor that triggers and exacerbates asthma, the most common pediatric chronic disease. Using a mobile app to monitor indoor air quality could be promising in engaging children in keeping their indoor air quality clean and healthy as the basis of environmental secondary prevention for asthma management. No app is available, however, to allow children to monitor, assess, and improve their indoor air quality. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to design a mobile app that encourages children to engage in monitoring indoor air quality and tracking their asthma conditions through a user-centered, iterative design approach. METHODS We conducted a review of existing applications and two sets of semi-structured interviews with 12 children with asthma, through which we iteratively created prototypes and evaluated and revised them accordingly. RESULTS Participants raised a series of outstanding questions on the prototype features and content that described their needs and perspectives, which informed the final designs. Following the identified requirements and recommendations, we developed two versions of the app, AirBuddy for presenting concrete information for indoor air quality and AirPet for gamifying the practice of monitoring indoor air quality. CONCLUSIONS By following an iterative, user-centered design process, we developed two versions of an app to encourage children with asthma to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma condition. The user-centered design approach revealed two crucial aspects that require deeper consideration when creating a child-friendly app, including balancing brevity and expressivity and the longitudinal effects of gamification. As a next step, we plan to conduct a longitudinal deployment study to evaluate the real-world effects of our apps.