User-Centered Design Process of an mHealth App for Health Professionals: Case Study

BACKGROUND: User-centered design processes are infrequently employed and not fully explored for building mobile health (mHealth) apps that are particularly targeted to health professionals as end users. The authors have used a user-centered design–based approach to build an mHealth app for health professionals, tasked to deliver medical laboratory-related information on a daily basis. OBJECTIVE: Our objective is to generate a simple and functional user-centered design process for mHealth apps for health professionals. This paper presents the key learnings from design activities. METHODS: A stratified random sample of doctors and nurses was recruited for the study. The design activities were planned in the following sequence: focus group discussion for situation analysis and information architecture, design activity 1 for wireframe designing, design activity 2 for wireframe testing, and user testing sessions 1 and 2. RESULTS: The final design and functions of the app, information architecture, and interactive elements were largely influenced by the participatory design–based user-centered design activities. As a result of the design process, we could identify the mental models of processing requests for information and personal preferences based on the experience. These findings were directly or indirectly incorporated into the app design. Furthermore, finding alternative ways of working within time constraints and cultural barriers and the methods employed to manage the challenges of interdisciplinary discourse stood out among the lessons learned. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend a user-centered design process based on a participatory design approach in mHealth app design, enriched with focus group discussions where possible.