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Cited by 101Mobile Health and mHealth ApplicationsUsability and User Interface DesignHealth, Technology, Consumer Behavior

Investigating usability of mobile health applications in Bangladesh

Open access
Islam, Muhammad Nazrul, Karim, Md. Mahboob, Inan, Toki Tahmid, Islam, A. K. M. Najmul·2020·BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
DOI 10.1186/s12911-020-1033-3PMC PMC6998368
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Abstract

Background: Lack of usability can be a major barrier for the rapid adoption of mobile services. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability of Mobile Health applications in Bangladesh. Method: We followed a 3-stage approach in our research. First, we conducted a keyword-based application search in the popular app stores. We followed the affinity diagram approach and clustered the found applications into nine groups. Second, we randomly selected four apps from each group (36 apps in total) and conducted a heuristic evaluation. Finally, we selected the highest downloaded app from each group and conducted user studies with 30 participants. Results: We found 61% usability problems are catastrophe or major in nature from heuristic inspection. The most (21%) violated heuristic is aesthetic and minimalist design. The user studies revealed low System Usability Scale (SUS) scores for those apps that had a high number of usability problems based on the heuristic evaluation. Thus, the results of heuristic evaluation and user studies complement each other. Conclusion: Overall, the findings suggest that the usability of the mobile health apps in Bangladesh is not satisfactory in general and could be a potential barrier for wider adoption of mobile health services.

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  • Inferior usability could negatively impact the adoption of DHAs and potentially their users' health.

    “The usability of DHAs is important as inferior usability could negatively impact the adoption of such technologies, and potentially, their users’ health [5].”

    From System Usability Scale Benchmarking for Digital Health Apps: Meta-analysis (2022) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Abstract Conclusion and Discussions > Key findings say poor usability could be a barrier to adoption of mHealth apps in Bangladesh. Our copy does not link poor usability to harm to users’ health, so that part of the claim is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. [2]Istepanian R, Laxminarayan S, Pattichis CS. M-health. New York: Springer Science+ Business Media, Incorporated; 2006.
  2. [26]Prodhan UK Rahman MZ Jahan I A systematic analysis on the telemedicine services in Bangladesh 1st International Conference on Advanced Information and Communication Technology 2016
  3. [27]Ahsan A Raihan A Understanding mHealth impact among Aponjon (MAMA Bangladesh) subscribers through a phone survey in Bangladesh Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development 2013
  4. [34]Shermi T Islam MN Akter S Elahi SSB Abdullah WM Al Mamun KA Virtual eye doc: an android based app in Bengali Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering (ECCE), International Conference on 2017
  5. [37]Khan F Das M Ahammed A PurpleAid: an mHealth platform to combat health hazards of women Medical Engineering, Health Informatics and Technology (MediTec), 2016 International Conference on 2016
  6. [44]Lucero A Using affinity diagrams to evaluate interactive prototypes IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, INTERACT-2015 2015
  7. [46]Tognazzini B Principles, techniques, and ethics of stage magic and their application to human interface design CHI '93 Proceedings of the INTERACT '93 and CHI '93 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 1993

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Authors
Islam, M. N., Karim, M. M., Inan, T. T., & Islam, A. K. M. N.
Affiliations
  • Military Institute of Science and Technology (BD)
  • University of Turku (FI)
Corresponding author
Islam, Muhammad Nazrul
ORCID
Islam, Muhammad Nazrul
Venue
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2020-02-03
Volume
20
Issue
1
Pages
19-19
ISSN
1472-6947 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12911-020-1033-3
PMC
PMC6998368
OpenAlex
W3012803728
Cited by
101
References
35
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 9
FWCI
15.66
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • UTUPub (University of Turku) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • UTUPub (University of Turku) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Health, Technology, Consumer Behavior
Keywords
mobile health apps, usability, heuristic evaluation, System Usability Scale, app store analysis, user study, mobile health adoption, Bangladesh
MeSH terms
Adult, Bangladesh, Feasibility Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Telemedicine, Young Adult, Mobile Applications

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