Towards the design of an electronic health book for Sri Lankan children: A survey-based approach

In this paper we present a survey based approach towards the design of a mobile application meant to function as an electronic version of a child health book for use in Sri Lanka. Through the use of persuasive technology the application aims to inculcate positive behavioural changes in Sri Lankan parents in order to facilitate the well being of their children. We report on a survey conducted with parents living in urban areas in Colombo which led to the formulation of design guidelines for the application. The application was then evaluated with a set of parents. Results from both the survey and application show that parents held great importance to the privacy and security of their child's data. Some aspects of the paper based health book were deemed to be at times unclear; such as the developmental checks. In general parents were positive about the prospects of an electronic health book. We conclude our paper with future directions of the digital health book.