Design and Development of a Suite of Intimate Partner Violence Screening and Safety Planning Web Apps: User-Centered Approach

BACKGROUND: The popularity of mobile health (mHealth) technology has resulted in the development of numerous apps for almost every condition and disease management. mHealth and eHealth solutions for increasing awareness about, and safety around, intimate partner violence are no exception. These apps allow women to control access to these resources and provide unlimited, and with the right design features, safe access when these resources are needed. Few apps, however, have been designed in close collaboration with intended users to ensure relevance and effectiveness. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to discuss the design of a suite of evidence-based mHealth and eHealth apps to facilitate early identification of unsafe relationship behaviors and tailored safety planning to reduce harm from violence including the methods by which we collaborated with and sought input from a population of intended users. METHODS: A user-centered approach with aspects of human-centered design was followed to design a suite of 3 app-based safety planning interventions. RESULTS: This review of the design suite of app-based interventions revealed challenges faced and lessons learned that may inform future efforts to design evidence-based mHealth and eHealth interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Following a user-centered approach can be helpful in designing mHealth and eHealth interventions for marginalized and vulnerable populations, and led to novel insights that improved the design of our interventions.