Usability Challenges for Health and Wellness Mobile Apps: Mixed-Methods Study Among mHealth Experts and Consumers
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: By 2019, there will be an estimated 4.68 billion mobile phone users globally. This increase comes with an unprecedented proliferation in mobile apps, a plug-and-play product positioned to improve lives in innumerable ways. Within this landscape, medical apps will see a 41% compounded annual growth rate between 2015 and 2020, but paradoxically, prevailing evidence indicates declining downloads of such apps and decreasing "stickiness" with the intended end users. OBJECTIVE: As usability is a prerequisite for success of health and wellness mobile apps, this paper aims to provide insights and suggestions for improving usability experience of the mobile health (mHealth) app by exploring the degree of alignment between mHealth insiders and consumers. METHODS: Usability-related major themes were selected from over 20 mHealth app development studies. The list of themes, grouped into 5 categories using the Nielsen usability model, was then used as a framework to identify and classify the responses from mHealth expert (insider) interviews. Responses from the qualitative phase were integrated into some questions for a quantitative consumer survey. Subsequently, categorical data from qualitative mHealth insider interviews and numerical data from a quantitative consumer survey were compared in order to identify common usability themes and areas of divergence. RESULTS: Of the 5 usability attributes described in Nielsen model, Satisfaction ranked as the top attribute for both mHealth insiders and consumers. Satisfaction refers to user likability, comfort, and pleasure. The consumer survey yielded 451 responses. Out of 9 mHealth insiders' top concerns, 5 were similar to those of the consumers. On the other hand, consumers did not grade themes such as Intuitiveness as important, which was deemed vital by mHealth insiders. Other concerns of the consumers include in-app charges and advertisements. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports and contributes to the existing pool of mixed-research studies. Strengthening the connectivity between suppliers and users (through the designed research tool) will help increase uptake of mHealth apps. In a holistic manner, this will have a positive overall outcome for the mHealth app ecosystem.
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- Authors
- Liew, M. S., Zhang, J., See, J., & Ong, Y. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Liew, Mei Shan
- Venue
- JMIR mHealth and uHealth
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2019-01-30
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e12160
- ISSN
- 2291-5222 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6372932
- OpenAlex
- W2905549017
- Cited by
- 179
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 66 · 2019: 5
- FWCI
- 34.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- 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, app usability, Nielsen's usability heuristics, user satisfaction, app adoption, in-app advertising, in-app purchases, mobile health
- MeSH terms
- Evaluation Studies as Topic, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Surveys and Questionnaires, User-Computer Interface, Telemedicine, Qualitative Research
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