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Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach

BACKGROUND: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a federal nutrition program that provides nutritious food, education, and health care referrals to low-income women, infants, and children up to the age of 5 years. Although WIC is associated...

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Autores principales: Weber, Summer J, Shearer, Elyse, Mulvaney, Shelagh A, Schmidt, Douglas, Thompson, Chris, Jones, Jessica, Ahmad, Haseeb, Coe, Martina, Hull, Pamela C
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8367138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34328432
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30450
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author Weber, Summer J
Shearer, Elyse
Mulvaney, Shelagh A
Schmidt, Douglas
Thompson, Chris
Jones, Jessica
Ahmad, Haseeb
Coe, Martina
Hull, Pamela C
author_facet Weber, Summer J
Shearer, Elyse
Mulvaney, Shelagh A
Schmidt, Douglas
Thompson, Chris
Jones, Jessica
Ahmad, Haseeb
Coe, Martina
Hull, Pamela C
author_sort Weber, Summer J
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a federal nutrition program that provides nutritious food, education, and health care referrals to low-income women, infants, and children up to the age of 5 years. Although WIC is associated with positive health outcomes for each participant category, modernization and efficiency are needed at the clinic and shopping levels to increase program satisfaction and participation rates. New technologies, such as electronic benefits transfer (EBT), online nutrition education, and mobile apps, can provide opportunities to improve the WIC experience for participants. OBJECTIVE: This formative study applies user-centered design principles to inform the layout and prioritization of features in mobile apps for low-income families participating in the WIC program. METHODS: To identify and prioritize desirable app features, caregivers (N=22) of the children enrolled in WIC participated in individual semistructured interviews with a card sorting activity. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant comparative analysis for themes. App features were ranked and placed into natural groupings by each participant. The sum and average of the rankings were calculated to understand which features were prioritized by the users. Natural groupings of features were labeled according to participant descriptions. RESULTS: Natural groupings focused on the following categories: clinics/appointments, shopping/stores, education/assessments, location, and recipes/food. Themes from the interviews triangulated the results from the ranking activity. The priority app features were balance checking, an item scanner, and appointment scheduling. Other app features discussed and ranked included appointment reminders, nutrition training and quizzes, shopping lists, clinic and store locators, recipe gallery, produce calculator, and dietary preferences/allergies. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates how a user-centered design process can aid the development of an app for low-income families participating in WIC to inform the effective design of the app features and user interface.
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spelling pubmed-83671382021-08-24 Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach Weber, Summer J Shearer, Elyse Mulvaney, Shelagh A Schmidt, Douglas Thompson, Chris Jones, Jessica Ahmad, Haseeb Coe, Martina Hull, Pamela C JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a federal nutrition program that provides nutritious food, education, and health care referrals to low-income women, infants, and children up to the age of 5 years. Although WIC is associated with positive health outcomes for each participant category, modernization and efficiency are needed at the clinic and shopping levels to increase program satisfaction and participation rates. New technologies, such as electronic benefits transfer (EBT), online nutrition education, and mobile apps, can provide opportunities to improve the WIC experience for participants. OBJECTIVE: This formative study applies user-centered design principles to inform the layout and prioritization of features in mobile apps for low-income families participating in the WIC program. METHODS: To identify and prioritize desirable app features, caregivers (N=22) of the children enrolled in WIC participated in individual semistructured interviews with a card sorting activity. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant comparative analysis for themes. App features were ranked and placed into natural groupings by each participant. The sum and average of the rankings were calculated to understand which features were prioritized by the users. Natural groupings of features were labeled according to participant descriptions. RESULTS: Natural groupings focused on the following categories: clinics/appointments, shopping/stores, education/assessments, location, and recipes/food. Themes from the interviews triangulated the results from the ranking activity. The priority app features were balance checking, an item scanner, and appointment scheduling. Other app features discussed and ranked included appointment reminders, nutrition training and quizzes, shopping lists, clinic and store locators, recipe gallery, produce calculator, and dietary preferences/allergies. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates how a user-centered design process can aid the development of an app for low-income families participating in WIC to inform the effective design of the app features and user interface. JMIR Publications 2021-07-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8367138/ /pubmed/34328432 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30450 Text en ©Summer J Weber, Elyse Shearer, Shelagh A Mulvaney, Douglas Schmidt, Chris Thompson, Jessica Jones, Haseeb Ahmad, Martina Coe, Pamela C Hull. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 30.07.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Weber, Summer J
Shearer, Elyse
Mulvaney, Shelagh A
Schmidt, Douglas
Thompson, Chris
Jones, Jessica
Ahmad, Haseeb
Coe, Martina
Hull, Pamela C
Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title_full Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title_fullStr Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title_full_unstemmed Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title_short Prioritization of Features for Mobile Apps for Families in a Federal Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children: User-Centered Design Approach
title_sort prioritization of features for mobile apps for families in a federal nutrition program for low-income women, infants, and children: user-centered design approach
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8367138/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34328432
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/30450
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