BACKGROUND
Many people use mobile healthcare applications and several of them have been developed for prevention, medication, education, etc. However, only a few have been developed based on research evidence and a semantics analysis. According to preliminary studies, these mobile health applications lack development design in terms of a graphical user interface. Therefore, this raises the questions of what a mobile health application should be, what the graphical and functional design should be, and how best to design the app.
OBJECTIVE
To resolve the defect of the graphic user interface (GUI) design and functionality of the women’s health application
METHODS
To answer these questions, design thinking methodology was used to resolve the defect of the graphic user interface (GUI) design and functionality of the application. This research is focused on designing an application associated with women’s health based on analysing the top fifty mobile applications in the Google Play Store to identify problems and solve them. Thirty end users were invited to complete a questionnaire and thirteen IT experts were asked to provide feedback about the GUI design and functionality. Focus group interviews and the Delphi technique process were used to analyse the feedback and design a process taxonomy to address the problem.
RESULTS
A design framework to improve the functionality and graphical user interface of a mobile application for women’s health was produced based on the evaluation of end-users and IT experts. The final design of the application development, which was composed of five major functions: period calendar, self-assessment, self-note, counselling, reminder and notification, was launched. Modifications were made to the prototype application and a revised version was produced based on the feedback from the end users and experts with the result that the relevant problems with the GUI design and functionality were resolved, leading to more efficient use and users’ satisfaction.
CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded from the results of this study that the design thinking method led to the exploration of a potential framework to develop a mobile application for women’s health using a systematic process as a guide to analyse different kinds of study to establish a suitable development strategy. In addition, the incorporation of end-users, experts and a literature design principle were crucial to the usefulness of the application.
Investigating the Acceptance of Mobile Health Application User Interface Cultural-Based Design to Assist Arab Elderly Users
