USABILITY GUIDELINES FOR DESIGNING M-HEALTH CLINICAL CODING AND GROUPING APPLICATION

Abstract

The rapid progression of technology has led to web-based e-Health systems migrating to mobile device systems known as m-Health apps. Past researchers gave guidelines on the general e-Health, but the usability guidelines for m-Health apps were lacking. General guidelines are challenging to refer to when developing mobile apps with specific domains and complex functionalities. However, the absence of specific m-Health guidelines has made it challenging to design a quality and suitable app if it follows the general guidelines. Hence, specific usability guidelines for specific domains and complex functionalities apps with quality and sound research were developed to ensure the users get the best usable app. This study aims to produce a m-Health usability guideline for the clinical-based app of clinical coding and grouping for healthcare users. A total of ten participants participated in this study, which were fell into three categories; namely four industrial practitioners in the field of UI/UX, four experts with more than 20 years of experience in UI/UX and usability expertise, and two end-users, which consist of doctors and lecturers in public health and clinical coding. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, allowing the participants to share feedbacks and comments to improve the usability guidelines and prototype for clinical coding and grouping of the m-Health app. The four participants from the expert categories had undergone usability evaluations, namely heuristic evaluations, while the two end-users’ groups had engaged in cognitive walkthroughs to improve the usability guidelines and the app’s prototype. The transcript of the interviews and usability evaluations were transcribed for thematic analysis using Nvivo software. The emerging themes were categorised into legibility and readability consisting of sub-themes font, icon, label and logo, buttons, and visual design that includes the sub-theme, theme and style, illustration and animation and colour. The emerging themes were a few vital usability components that were taken into consideration during the development of the m-Health app. The study highlights some of the usability components that were the foundation of the usability guidelines and the prototypes developed may be used by researchers and developers to develop the clinical-based m-Health app in the future. The usability guidelines and the clinical coding and grouping m-Health app prototype can be further tested towards other m-Health apps with similar features and between more experts and other wider audiences, such as older age groups and colour-blind people to produce a more robust and holistic app that is universally suited for all people. Moreover, the expansion from a medium-fidelity prototype to a high-fidelity app was also encouraged for future researchers and developers.