Sustainable Development for Mobile Health Applications Using the Human-Centered Design Process (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED There is well-documented scientific evidence indicating that mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) can improve quality of life, relieve symptoms and restore health for patients. In addition to improving patients’ health outcomes, mHealth apps also reduce health care utilization and the cost burdens associated with disease management. Currently, patients and healthcare providers (HPs) have a wide variety of choices among commercially available mHealth apps. However, due to the high resource costs and low user adoption of mHealth apps, the cost-benefit relationship remains controversial. When compared to traditional expert-driven approaches, applying human-centered design (HCD) may result in more useable, acceptable, and effective mHealth apps. After reviewing the current HCD practices in the mHealth domain, we made the recommendations on HCD practices when developing mHealth apps. These recommendations focus on employing cultural considerations, applying iterative evaluation, incorporating novelty in design outcomes, and considering privacy and reliability across the entire HCD process. To guide development of mHealth apps, we also suggest a sociotechnical lens toward HCD practices to promote the sustainability of mHealth apps. Future research should consider standardizing the HCD practice to help mHealth researchers and developers avoid barriers associated with inadequate HCD practices.