“They don’t always think about that”: Translational Needs in the Design of Personal Health Informatics Applications

Title of the Paper

“They don’t always think about that”: Translational Needs in the Design of Personal Health Informatics Applications

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Areas: Health Informatics, Human-Computer Interaction Design, Personal Health Application Development
• Keywords: Translational Research, Personal Health Informatics, Health Design, User-Centered Design, Design Tools, Inclusive Design

Research Background and Problem

• Problems or Challenges:

  1. Research in personal health informatics has revealed numerous challenges in designing health applications, including the diversity of user needs and the complexity of daily life and clinical collaboration.
  2. High-level theoretical research often fails to effectively translate into practical design practices, representing a typical "research-practice gap."
  3. Beyond individual self-tracking, tracking in diverse health contexts (e.g., family or clinical settings) and inconsistencies with healthcare providers' expectations pose significant design challenges.

• Significance:

  • Personal health technologies are widely used to help users develop healthy behaviors and manage chronic health conditions in real time, but poor design can lead to misuse, incorrect assumptions, or even misguidance and adverse effects on users.
  • The design of health tracking applications often neglects considerations for marginalized groups, accessibility, or privacy issues.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • Motivation: To explore how to address the gap between knowledge translation and application in health application design and investigate how design resources can help designers avoid common pitfalls.
  • Related Work: Previous studies have developed tools (e.g., card-based tools) to facilitate designers' reflection, brainstorming, and collaboration, and have explored how theoretical findings can be translated into design practices.

Solution

• Methods or Solutions:

  • The authors developed a set of prototype design cards that translate research insights from the field of personal health informatics into easily usable design resources.
  • The cards guide designers to rethink potential assumptions in personal health informatics through a question-based approach.
  • Two rounds of user interviews were conducted to evaluate the cards and explore their applicability and areas for improvement.

• Innovations:

  1. The cards integrate knowledge in a tangible format, explicitly presenting key assumptions and potential pitfalls in health technology design.
  2. They provide specific participatory design examples and research citations, strengthening the connection between academic research and practical design.
  3. They incorporate multidimensional perspectives, including inclusivity and emotional and ethical issues related to personal data, into a comprehensive tool.

• Implementation Steps:

  • Content Identification: Through literature review, interviews, and affinity diagramming, 75 relevant research papers were identified, and design challenges were extracted.
  • Card Design: A set of 22 cards was developed, covering five major themes, including question prompts, specific design examples, textual hints, and research citations.
  • Iterative Validation: Based on two rounds of interviews (with student designers and professional designers), the card content and format were optimized.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  1. A prototype design resource consisting of 22 cards was proposed, covering key health design topics such as "Who is tracking? Why track?"
  2. The study detailed designers' knowledge gaps, advocacy barriers, and evidence acquisition challenges in actual health design.
  3. Strategies and experiences for translating health informatics research into practice were distilled.

• Advantages:

  • Encourages designers to focus on accessibility, privacy needs, and social/cultural contexts during the design process.
  • Provides an effective tool for supporting and advocating design principles within interdisciplinary teams.
  • Serves as an important medium for bridging academic research and practical design, lowering the barrier for designers to access research evidence.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • In two rounds of semi-structured interviews involving 24 participants, designers generally reported that the cards supported their problem discovery and critical thinking during the design process.
  • Student designers regarded the cards as a learning tool, while professional designers saw their strong potential for application in multidisciplinary collaboration.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    1. The card content may be too complex and information-dense for novice designers.
    2. The current cards do not adequately reflect legal, regulatory requirements, or other specific contextual constraints.
    3. The assumed application scenarios are virtual environments, lacking validation in ongoing and dynamic design projects.
  • Future Directions:
    1. Develop a companion website/digital tool for the cards to provide additional support resources and dynamic content updates.
    2. Explore ways to better support the use of the cards in marketing, communication, and real-world product iteration.
    3. Refine the card content to better align with design needs in diverse cultural, legal, and regulatory contexts.