A Mobile App for Children With Asthma to Monitor Indoor Air Quality (AirBuddy): Development and Usability Study

BACKGROUND: Indoor air quality is an important environmental factor that triggers and exacerbates asthma, the most common chronic disease in children. A mobile app to monitor indoor air quality could help occupants keep their indoor air quality clean. However, no app is available that allows children to monitor and improve their indoor air quality. OBJECTIVE: Previously, we conducted a series of user-centered design studies to identify user needs and design requirements toward creating a mobile app that helps children with asthma to engage in monitoring and improving indoor air quality as part of their asthma management. Based on the findings from these studies, we created AirBuddy, a child-friendly app that visualizes air quality indoors and outdoors. METHODS: This paper reports on the findings from a field deployment with 7 pediatric asthma patients, where we evaluated AirBuddy’s usability and usefulness in real-world settings by conducting weekly semistructured interviews for 8 weeks. RESULTS: All participants positively responded to the usefulness and usability of AirBuddy, which we believe is thanks to the iterative, user-centered design approach that allowed us to identify and address potential usability issues early on and throughout the design process. CONCLUSIONS: This project contributes to the field of mHealth app design for children by demonstrating how a user-centered design process can lead to the development of digital devices that are more acceptable and relevant to target users’ needs.