Resolving design issues in developing a nutrition app: A case study using formative research

Evans, Susan M.; Clarke, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2018.10.010

Cited by 13 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Consequently, we (SHE and PC) turned to building a mobile app that capitalized on experiences with the tablet system. Many formative studies contributed to the design and content of our app (Evans and Clarke 2019;.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even for apps with tested positive outcomes, however, barriers arise to downloading and sustained use. This paper identifies such barriers in the case of a nutrition app that was built with the help of abundant formative studies among users (Evans and Clarke 2019). The app also demonstrated its effectiveness in a rigorous randomized controlled trial (RCT), the gold standard for evaluating interventions in health care delivery (Clarke et al 2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Consumer Health App Works Well. . . But, Diffusion Is Not So Easy

Evans

Clarke

Glovinsky³

2019

J. technol. behav. sci.

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The number of mobile health apps is exploding, though few of these tools have been evaluated for effectiveness. Furthermore, even apps certified for their impact may not diffuse widely. App outreach efforts may lack "human touches," when encouraging potential users to adopt. We (SHE and PC) built a nutrition app for low-income clients of community food pantries and confirmed its effectiveness in a randomized field trial. We then collaborated with a variety of community organizations in six diffusion efforts, inviting our sites to design interventions that incorporated human touches that they could sustain beyond our collaborations. We independently monitored the experiments' impact. Collaborators' diffusion efforts that deployed several human touches were judged more successful than trials that executed few. But, only half of our collaborating organizations embraced the most essential human touches, practices we judged were part of a User-Friendly Approach. A fundamental irony can stymie projects that create information technologies to help empower people, such as eating more healthily. The modern technology's ultimate success may rest on ancient skills of nurturing users at the moment of downloading. In a high-tech world, it is the human touch that will make the difference between widespread adoption or not.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Consumer Health App Works Well. . . But, Diffusion Is Not So Easy

Evans

Clarke

Glovinsky³

2019

J. technol. behav. sci.

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“…Our previous formative and evaluation research established design features for the app we built and whose field test is reported here ( 16 , 26 , 28 ) . These included:Launch a user’s quest for recipes by offering a choice among specific vegetables (carrots, green beans, broccoli, etc.).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…VeggieBook, an app for mobile phones Our previous formative and evaluation research established design features for the app we built and whose field test is reported here (16,26,28) . These included:…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile app increases vegetable-based preparations by low-income household cooks: a randomized controlled trial

Clarke

Evans

Neffa-Creech

2018

Public Health Nutr.

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ObjectiveWe built an app to help clients of food pantries. The app offers vegetable-based recipes, food tips and no-cost strategies for making mealtimes healthier and for bargain-conscious grocery shopping, among other themes. Users customize materials to meet their own preferences. The app, available in English and Spanish, has been tested in a randomized field trial.DesignA randomized controlled trial with repeated measures across 10 weeks.SettingClients of fifteen community food pantry distributions in Los Angeles County, USA.ParticipantsDistributions were randomized to control and experimental conditions, and 289 household cooks and one of their 9–14-year-old children were enrolled as participants. Experimental dyads were given a smartphone with our app and a phone use-plan, then trained to use the app. ‘Test vegetables’ were added to the foods that both control and experimental participants received at their pantries.ResultsAfter 3–4 weeks of additional ‘test vegetables’, cooks at experimental pantries had made 38 % more preparations with these items than control cooks (P = 0·03). Ten weeks following baseline, experimental pantries also scored greater gains in using a wider assortment of vegetables than control pantries (P = 0·003). Use of the app increased between mid-experiment and final measurement (P = 0·0001).ConclusionsThe app appears to encourage household cooks to try new preparation methods and widen their incorporation of vegetables into family diets. Further research is needed to identify specific app features that contributed most to outcomes and to test ways in which to disseminate the app widely.

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“…Despite decades of research into social constructivism and its role in the development of technological artefacts, perhaps the most critical of these gaps remains the lack of insight into creative, technical and formative design steps (Pinch and Bijker, 1984; Stockdale et al, 2014). Although recent headway has been made in this field (Adu et al, 2018; Evans and Clark, 2019; Halili et al, 2018; Lau et al, 2018; Schwab and Langell, 2018; see Al-Jaberi, 2018), there is a particular need for further qualitative studies – of which this article is a contribution – that consider the complexity, sociality, conflicts and accommodations of app design processes, including the initial dialogue and formative testing that drives the definition of their scope and refinement of content and functionality (Guerra-Reyes et al, 2016; Winner, 1993; Wu et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solving ‘wicked problems’ in the app co-design process

Skuse

Rodger

Wilmore

et al. 2020

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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Until relatively recently, processes of health application (app) design have been understudied and this has resulted in a lack of critical reflection on app creation, including curtailing opportunities to share insights and possible pitfalls that could inform best practice in the field. In response, this article contributes to a growing body of literature that addresses this lacuna by exploring the experiences of the research and design team that developed a health app for pregnant women attending a large tertiary hospital in South Australia. Our analysis pays particular attention to the designer–researcher–user nexus exhibited in the ‘co-design’ process and in doing so, draws on Rittel’s notion of ‘wicked problems’. Ultimately, we show that app design is a problem-solving process that is reflective of a high degree of sociality, fluidity, accommodations and compromises.

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Resolving design issues in developing a nutrition app: A case study using formative research

Cited by 13 publications

References 24 publications

A Consumer Health App Works Well. . . But, Diffusion Is Not So Easy

A Consumer Health App Works Well. . . But, Diffusion Is Not So Easy

Mobile app increases vegetable-based preparations by low-income household cooks: a randomized controlled trial

Solving ‘wicked problems’ in the app co-design process

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