Facilitated Collaborative Group Co-Design of Hypothetical Digital Tools to Understand University Students’ Well-being Support Needs and Requirements

Abstract

The number of students in higher education encountering issues with their well-being is increasing every year, with many struggling to seek appropriate support due to reasons such as stigma or lack of access to services. Consequently, digital well-being support tools may be best placed to address their needs; however, few of these tools involve students in the design process, and thus, there is a lack of clarity as to whether these tools meet the needs of students. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to provide a series of design considerations that should be incorporated in the design and development of digital tools to support student well-being. Co-design methods were used to develop these design considerations by understanding the well-being domains in which students want support, their views on existing digital supports, and their desired features in a digital support tool. Undergraduate students enrolled in a well-being module at an Irish University completed a facilitated group assignment in which they were required to co-design a hypothetical digital tool to support other students’ well-being. Deductive thematic analysis of the 10-min presentations of their tools was carried out. The overall findings were that:Students recognize all well-being domains as interconnected and view social connectedness and time management as crucial for them to find good balance in their lives and to thrive;Current digital well-being tools do not appropriately meet their needs, being too expensive, unmotivating, not suited to the student lifestyle and perceived as untrustworthy;Students desire a digital well-being tool that can give them structured and streamlined support and that clearly relates to their specific university environment;Specific desired features include the ability to log and visualize data, personalization capabilities, a motivational rewards system, and trustworthy educational information, tips and advice.