App Use and Usability of a Barcode-Based Digital Platform to Augment COVID-19 Contact Tracing: Postpilot Survey and Paradata Analysis

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed life in the United States, as the country has recorded over 23 million cases and 383,000 deaths to date. In the leadup to widespread vaccine deployment, testing and surveillance are critical for detecting and stopping possible routes of transmission. Contact tracing has become an important surveillance measure to control COVID-19 in the United States, and mobile health interventions have found increased prominence in this space. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the use and usability of MyCOVIDKey, a mobile-based web app to assist COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, during the 6-week pilot period. Methods A 6-week study was conducted on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, Tennessee. The study participants, consisting primarily of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty in the Chemistry Department at Vanderbilt University, were asked to use the MyCOVIDKey web app during the course of the study period. Paradata were collected as users engaged with the MyCOVIDKey web app. At the end of the study, all participants were asked to report on their user experience in a survey, and the results were analyzed in the context of the user paradata. Results During the pilot period, 45 users enrolled in MyCOVIDKey. An analysis of their enrollment suggests that initial recruiting efforts were effective; however, participant recruitment and engagement efforts at the midpoint of the study were less effective. App use paralleled the number of users, indicating that incentives were useful for recruiting new users to sign up but did not result in users attempting to artificially inflate their use as a result of prize offers. Times to completion of key tasks were low, indicating that the main features of the app could be used quickly. Of the 45 users, 30 provided feedback through a postpilot survey, with 26 (58%) completing it in its entirety. The MyCOVIDKey app as a whole was rated 70.0 on the System Usability Scale, indicating that it performed above the accepted threshold for usability. When the key-in and self-assessment features were examined on their own, it was found that they individually crossed the same thresholds for acceptable usability but that the key-in feature had a higher margin for improvement. Conclusions The MyCOVIDKey app was found overall to be a useful tool for COVID-19 contact tracing in a university setting. Most users suggested simple-to-implement improvements, such as replacing the web app framework with a native app format or changing the placement of the scanner within the app workflow. After these updates, this tool could be readily deployed and easily adapted to other settings across the country. The need for digital contact tracing tools is becoming increasingly apparent, particularly as COVID-19 case numbers continue to increase while more businesses begin to reopen.

Best Practice Guidance for Digital Contact Tracing Apps: A Cross-disciplinary Review of the Literature

“…This area should be a focus of future research. DCTAs need to detect contact events accurately to optimize uptake [ 79 , 105 , 144 , 145 ]. Ultra-wideband is a low energy means of enabling short-range high bandwidth communications that can transmit data with minimal noise interference.…”

Understanding On-Campus Interactions With a Semiautomated, Barcode-Based Platform to Augment COVID-19 Contact Tracing: App Development and Usage

“…In our postpilot survey, we did ask users about their experiences with COVID-19 testing. While explained in greater detail in our analysis of the postpilot survey data [39], one MyCOVIDKey user did report a positive diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, MyCOVIDKey was able to accurately identify this person as a POI (this user was symptomatic, and their self-assessment indicated high risk), the locations they had visited in the buildings, and their contacts of interest.…”

“…While the postpilot survey results are analyzed separately in greater detail [39], it is worth noting that from this data it was clear that the majority of MyCOVIDKey users were young: 73.3% (22/30) of respondents were aged 20-30 years, while 20% (6/30) were aged 30-40 years and 6.66% (2/30) were 41 years of age or older. In addition, 77% (23/30) of our users were graduate students engaged in research.…”

“…This survey included questions about user demographics, as well as satisfaction questions focused on the MyCOVIDKey user experience. This work focuses on the technical implementation and results from the pilot; a thorough analysis of the postpilot survey, as well as a usability analysis and recommendations for improvement, are described elsewhere [39].…”

“…A 6-week pilot study took place within the Stevenson Center Science and Engineering Complex, on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, TN. The pilot study was successful, and after app revisions based on user feedback (presented in detail in Scherr et al [39]), MyCOVIDKey will be ready for wider-scale deployment to campus and office settings. In this study, we found two clear purposes that could be addressed with digital interventions like MyCOVIDKey: (1) the identification of contacts of a POI who could have potentially been exposed and (2) the identification of locations that POIs visited that may be candidates for enhanced cleaning.…”