More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity levels. Self-management strategies are used to support th...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Giunti, Guido, Mylonopoulou, Vasiliki, Rivera-Romero, Octavio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/81153
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/81153
https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9437
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Multiple sclerosis
Telemedicine
Fatigue
Mobile applications
Video games
Qualitative research
Exercise
Chronic disease
User-computer interface
Software design
id ES_aff22741c8064490a2cc82f96e16b4e9
oai_identifier_str oai:idus.us.es:11441/81153
network_acronym_str ES
network_name_str España
repository_id_str
spelling More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through DesignGiunti, GuidoMylonopoulou, VasilikiRivera-Romero, OctavioMultiple sclerosisTelemedicineFatigueMobile applicationsVideo gamesQualitative researchExerciseChronic diseaseUser-computer interfaceSoftware designBackground: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity levels. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions are a way to offer persons with chronic conditions tools to successfully manage their symptoms and problems. Gamification is a current trend among mHealth apps used to create engaging user experiences and is suggested to be effective for behavioral change. To be effective, mHealth solutions need to be designed to specifically meet the intended audience needs. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy that proposes placing end users’ needs and characteristics in the center of design and development, involving users early in the different phases of the software life cycle. There is a current gap in mHealth apps for persons with MS, which presents an interesting area to explore. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the design and evaluation process of a gamified mHealth solution for behavioral change in persons with MS using UCD. Methods: Building on previous work of our team where we identified needs, barriers, and facilitators for mHealth apps for persons with MS, we followed UCD to design and evaluate a mobile app prototype aimed to help persons with MS self-manage their fatigue. Design decisions were evidence-driven and guided by behavioral change models (BCM). Usability was assessed through inspection methods using Nielsen’s heuristic evaluation. Results: The mHealth solution More Stamina was designed. It is a task organization tool designed to help persons with MS manage their energy to minimize the impact of fatigue in their day-to-day life. The tool acts as a to-do list where users can input tasks in a simple manner and assign Stamina Credits, a representation of perceived effort, to the task to help energy management and energy profiling. The app also features personalization and positive feedback. The design process gave way to relevant lessons to the design of a gamified behavioral change mHealth app such as the importance of metaphors in concept design, negotiate requirements with the BCM constructs, and tailoring of gamified experiences among others. Several usability problems were discovered during heuristic evaluation and guided the iterative design of our solution. Conclusions: In this paper, we designed an app targeted for helping persons with MS in their fatigue management needs. We illustrate how UCD can help in designing mHealth apps and the benefits and challenges that designers might face when using this approach. This paper provides insight into the design process of gamified behavioral change mHealth apps and the negotiation process implied in it.676201 for the Connected Health Early-stage researcher Support System (CHESS ITN) from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European CommissionLuis Fernandez-Luque PhD, Prof Minna Isomursu, Peter Oesch PhD, Jan Kool PhD, Joaquin Chacon-Galvez, Analia Baum MD and Diego Giunta MDJMIRTecnología ElectrónicaTIC150: Tecnología Electrónica e Informática IndustrialEuropean Union (UE). H20202018info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/11441/81153https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9437reponame:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevillainstname:Universidad de Sevilla (US)InglésJMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6 (3), 1-17.676201https://mhealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e51/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:idus.us.es:11441/811532026-06-17T12:51:07Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
title More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
spellingShingle More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
Giunti, Guido
Multiple sclerosis
Telemedicine
Fatigue
Mobile applications
Video games
Qualitative research
Exercise
Chronic disease
User-computer interface
Software design
title_short More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
title_full More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
title_fullStr More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
title_full_unstemmed More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
title_sort More Stamina, a Gamified mHealth Solution for Persons with Multiple Sclerosis: Research Through Design
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Giunti, Guido
Mylonopoulou, Vasiliki
Rivera-Romero, Octavio
author Giunti, Guido
author_facet Giunti, Guido
Mylonopoulou, Vasiliki
Rivera-Romero, Octavio
author_role author
author2 Mylonopoulou, Vasiliki
Rivera-Romero, Octavio
author2_role author
author
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv Tecnología Electrónica
TIC150: Tecnología Electrónica e Informática Industrial
European Union (UE). H2020
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Multiple sclerosis
Telemedicine
Fatigue
Mobile applications
Video games
Qualitative research
Exercise
Chronic disease
User-computer interface
Software design
topic Multiple sclerosis
Telemedicine
Fatigue
Mobile applications
Video games
Qualitative research
Exercise
Chronic disease
User-computer interface
Software design
description Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the world’s most common neurologic disorders. Fatigue is one of most common symptoms that persons with MS experience, having significant impact on their quality of life and limiting their activity levels. Self-management strategies are used to support them in the care of their health. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions are a way to offer persons with chronic conditions tools to successfully manage their symptoms and problems. Gamification is a current trend among mHealth apps used to create engaging user experiences and is suggested to be effective for behavioral change. To be effective, mHealth solutions need to be designed to specifically meet the intended audience needs. User-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy that proposes placing end users’ needs and characteristics in the center of design and development, involving users early in the different phases of the software life cycle. There is a current gap in mHealth apps for persons with MS, which presents an interesting area to explore. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the design and evaluation process of a gamified mHealth solution for behavioral change in persons with MS using UCD. Methods: Building on previous work of our team where we identified needs, barriers, and facilitators for mHealth apps for persons with MS, we followed UCD to design and evaluate a mobile app prototype aimed to help persons with MS self-manage their fatigue. Design decisions were evidence-driven and guided by behavioral change models (BCM). Usability was assessed through inspection methods using Nielsen’s heuristic evaluation. Results: The mHealth solution More Stamina was designed. It is a task organization tool designed to help persons with MS manage their energy to minimize the impact of fatigue in their day-to-day life. The tool acts as a to-do list where users can input tasks in a simple manner and assign Stamina Credits, a representation of perceived effort, to the task to help energy management and energy profiling. The app also features personalization and positive feedback. The design process gave way to relevant lessons to the design of a gamified behavioral change mHealth app such as the importance of metaphors in concept design, negotiate requirements with the BCM constructs, and tailoring of gamified experiences among others. Several usability problems were discovered during heuristic evaluation and guided the iterative design of our solution. Conclusions: In this paper, we designed an app targeted for helping persons with MS in their fatigue management needs. We illustrate how UCD can help in designing mHealth apps and the benefits and challenges that designers might face when using this approach. This paper provides insight into the design process of gamified behavioral change mHealth apps and the negotiation process implied in it.
publishDate 2018
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2018
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/11441/81153
https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9437
url https://hdl.handle.net/11441/81153
https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9437
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6 (3), 1-17.
676201
https://mhealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e51/
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv JMIR
publisher.none.fl_str_mv JMIR
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
instname:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
instname_str Universidad de Sevilla (US)
reponame_str idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
collection idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
_version_ 1869416747600183296
score 15,300719

Similares en LA Referencia