Hello.
My name is Sharon Mozgai.
Today I'm presenting user centered design for mobile health
applications, a military case study in rapid assessment process.
This work was done with my collaborators, Brian Femminella,
are Arno Hartholt and Albert "Skip", Rizzo at USC's Institute for
Creative Technologies.
Currently, US military leadership is ranking the well-being
of soldiers and their families above combat readiness and
even weapons modernization.
Emerging mobile health or mhealth technologies designed
to support mental health are considered a promising tool
for overcoming stigma and engaging service members in their
own care.
This rapid rise of this interest make sense.
These apps can transform mobile and wearable devices into
a monitoring and therapeutic platform that can capture mental
health symptoms in real time and deliver on the go mental
health support.
Despite the widespread consensus that identifying the needs
and perspectives of targeted users is a vital component in
good intervention development, user-centered design has not
been widely applied in the domain of mhealth applications.
The purpose of our case study is to report on the user centered
design process we employed in the development of the mHealth
application, Battle Buddy. Battle Buddy is designed for a
military audience, and it leverages sensors native to popular
smartwatches to deliver adaptive multimedia wellness content
via a virtual human coach to drive engagement.
The ISR framework depicted here was used to guide the overall
app design. For today's short talk.
I'm going to delve deeper into our team's use of rapid assessment
process as part of the design cycle of Is.
RAP is a qualitative research method borrowed from participatory
action research.
The goal of a RAP interview is to have people tell you personal
stories and about their experiences.
RAP teams should be multidisciplinary, but RAP interviews
with end user should be conducted by an insider to the end
user group.
These interviews follow a series of guidelines rather than
descripted questions.
The primary aims of our first RAP interview were to identify
the mhealth needs of this community, their mobile app preferences,
and identify any barriers.
The insider who conducted our end user interviews was a US
Military cadet.
The interviews were one-on-one, approximately 60 minutes in
length and videotaped.
All participants were exposed to the same Battle Buddy functionality
during the sessions.
Our target population was US Department of Defense.
Personnel and those who live with military personnel
over the age of 18. We recruited 10 participants as previous
work in RAP shows.
that themes begin to repeat themselves
after about eight to 10 interviews. I'd like to give you
a closer look at the app and those end user interviews.
Now remember, research suggests that reflecting on the good
things that happen in our lives to affect us.
Possibly I'll give you a few moments.
Are you ready?
Hit the microphone icon below and begin to speak.
Just hit the microphone icon again and then the next one.
The soldier looks very real.
The crease lines are incredible.
I feel like I'm talking to a real person.
So Bravo there.
It's just coming down to the fact that I don't feel like
I'm talking to someone in my unit and having those patches
maybe will allow me to feel more comfortable with who I'm
talking to.
With respect, our team coded this data from the interview
transcripts, and we divided it into thematic units.
A coding system was developed based on the recurrent themes
that came up.
The transcripts were double coded using Invivo 12 software.
The RAP team then work together to consolidate relevant findings
from the codes through the synthesizing of patterns.
The findings here are specific to our app.
I did want to share them, and I would like to share how our
app evolved because of these findings.
So lessons learned from engaging in this process is that
it's cost effective.
The themes emerge quickly across interviews.
The insider interviewer led to quick disclosure from our
participants and the personal stories they shared last excessive
exposition. They got right into it without defining a lot
of terms.
Our a priori interview guide was invaluable for covering all
of the topics that we needed to across interviews because
they did all take their own shape.
And the end users are really savvy about their design preferences.
Even if they aren't designers themselves, rap can also lend
itself to traditional UX.
studies, like think aloud exercises.
And we think that there's applicability outside of our own
lab for this process.
We do have limitations in our study, small sample size, lacking
diversity, demographic, and geographic.
But if you'd like to speak to us more about any of this,
you can reach us here.
Thank you so very much.