Ways to Quantify the User Experience of Healthcare Apps

There are behavioural and attitudinal user experience (UX) metrics. Both
are of interest in quantitative research as they reveal how users use and feel about a
product. Behavioural metrics can be quantified with user clicks, page views, time
spent on page etc. Analytics of behavioural metrics can give an indication as to what
information/features end-users are interested in.
Attitudinal metrics are often questionnaire tools, and they are a prevalent method
used to assess UX, or its aspects, of healthcare apps. Usability as an aspect of UX,
has frequently been quantified with tools such as System Usability Scale (SUS) and
Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI). Moreover, these tools are used
to broadly assesses usability of different products and have not been designed for
healthcare apps. In 2019 a new tool specifically designed to assesses usability of
mobile health (mHealth) apps called mHealth Application Usability Questionnaire
(MAUQ) has been published. Hence, this new tool may be more fit to assess
usability of healthcare apps. To assess whole of UX, tools such as Mobile
Application User Experience Checklist (MAUX-C) could be used. However, there is
no consensus on the limitations of questionnaires when assessing UX of healthcare
apps.
Questionnaire tools are designed to be used by either end-users or assessors. End-
users give their feedback based on their use of the product, using questionnaires
such as SUS. When there is no readily available users or time, assessor can use
questionnaires, such as MAUX-C, to assess the healthcare app. Assessor with an
understanding of UX using validated questionnaire (such as MAUX-C) can
approximate how UX friendly healthcare app is.
UX of digital health apps can also be assessed by health compliance specialists. The
Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications (ORCHA) is a United
Kingdom based digital health compliance company that specialises in the
assessment of digital health apps. The assessment questionnaire (ORCHA baseline
review) includes a ‘usability and accessibility’ section. This may be a more rigours
way of assessing digital health apps than self-assessment with questionnaires, due
to trained assessors being involved.
Currently there appears to be no all-encompassing ‘gold standard’ to quantify UX for
healthcare apps, neither with behavioural nor attitudinal UX metrics. There only
appear to be different methods that highlight different UX problems. And different
questionnaires, that can be used based on availability of end-users and time. In this
talk we will explore these different methods for measuring UX and explore their
advantages and disadvantages and present a framework based on this analysis.