Supporting Cancer Patients in Illness Management: Usability Evaluation of a Mobile App

Abstract

BackgroundMobile phones and tablets currently represent a significant presence in people’s everyday lives. They enable access to different information and services independent of current place and time. Such widespread connectivity offers significant potential in different app areas including health care.ObjectiveOur goal was to evaluate the usability of the Connect Mobile app. The mobile app enables mobile access to the Connect system, an online system that supports cancer patients in managing health-related issues. Along with symptom management, the system promotes better patient-provider communication, collaboration, and shared decision making. The Connect Mobile app enables access to the Connect system over both mobile phones and tablets.MethodsThe study consisted of usability tests of a high fidelity prototype with 7 cancer patients where the objectives were to identify existing design and functionality issues and to provide patients with a real look-and-feel of the mobile system. In addition, we conducted semistructured interviews to obtain participants’ feedback about app usefulness, identify the need for new system features and design requirements, and measure the acceptance of the mobile app and its features within everyday health management.ResultsThe study revealed a total of 27 design issues (13 for mobile apps and 14 for tablet apps), which were mapped to source events (ie, errors, requests for help, participants' concurrent feedback, and moderator observation). We also applied usability heuristics to identify violations of usability principles. The majority of violations were related to enabling ease of input, screen readability, and glanceability (15 issues), as well as supporting an appropriate match between systems and the real world (7 issues) and consistent mapping of system functions and interactions (4 issues). Feedback from participants also showed the cancer patients’ requirements for support systems and how these needs are influenced by different context-related factors, such as type of access terminal (eg, desktop computer, tablet, mobile phone) and phases of illness. Based on the observed results, we proposed design and functionality recommendations that can be used for the development of mobile apps for cancer patients to support their health management process.ConclusionsUnderstanding and addressing users’ requirements is one of the main prerequisites for developing useful and effective technology-based health interventions. The results of this study outline different user requirements related to the design of the mobile patient support app for cancer patients. The results will be used in the iterative development of the Connect Mobile app and can also inform other developers and researchers in development, integration, and evaluation of mobile health apps and services that support cancer patients in managing their health-related issues.

Evaluating the Usability of a Nationwide Pharmacy Information System in Iran: Application of Nielson’s Heuristics

“…Our results indicated that the heuristics "consistency and standard" and "recognition rather than recall" have the largest number of violations, with the lowest number of violations related to "error prevention" and "Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors" heuristics. These results are similar to the results of other studies, such as the those conducted by Khajouei et al, Atashi et al, and Nabovati et al in Iran (25)(26)(27), and also the studies conducted by Choi and Bakken, Georgsson et al, Joshi et al, and Mirkovic et al in countries other than Iran, which reported a high number of violations concerning these heuristics (28)(29)(30)(31). On the other hand, the unexpected results of this study indicated that the severity of 60.8% of all violations is major and catastrophic, which accounts for more than half of the identified violations and, in this case, and efficiency of the systems, satisfaction of their users, and hospital's financial issues.…”

Design of Customized Mobile Application for Patient Adherence to Oral Anticancer Medications Utilizing User-Centered Design

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“…Many people, including clinicians, already use mobile devices on a daily basis, including within their clinical practices (Mirkovic et al, 2014). This article reviews the development and use of animation as part of a mobile education tool to enhance the understanding of managing a complex medication regimen within a minority patient population.…”

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Health literacy in selected populations: Individuals, families, and communities from the international and cultural perspective

“…Mobile apps have been developed to support patients in the various aspects of their involvement in promoting, maintaining and improving health, such as disease prevention, medication adherence, illness management, lifestyle modification and in navigating the health care system including making appointments in health services [4,9,18,19,40,51]. The most common disease-specific apps aim to provide education on diabetes, hypertension and hepatitis [19].…”