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Empirical Studies on Usability of mHealth Apps: A Systematic Literature Review

  • Mobile Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

The release of smartphones and tablets, which offer more advanced communication and computing capabilities, has led to the strong emergence of mHealth on the market. mHealth systems are being used to improve patients’ lives and their health, in addition to facilitating communication between doctors and patients. Researchers are now proposing mHealth applications for many health conditions such as dementia, autism, dysarthria, Parkinson’s disease, and so on. Usability becomes a key factor in the adoption of these applications, which are often used by people who have problems when using mobile devices and who have a limited experience of technology. The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical usability evaluation processes described in a total of 22 selected studies related to mHealth applications by means of a Systematic Literature Review. Our results show that the empirical evaluation methods employed as regards usability could be improved by the adoption of automated mechanisms. The evaluation processes should also be revised to combine more than one method. This paper will help researchers and developers to create more usable applications. Our study demonstrates the importance of adapting health applications to users’ need.

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Acknowledgments

This research is part of the PEGASO-PANGEA projects (TIN2009-13718-C02-02) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain), and the GEODAS-REQ project (TIN2012-37493-C03-02) financed by both the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and European FEDER funds. This research is also financed by the Erasmus Mundus EU-Mare Nostrum programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics and Systems, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30080, Murcia, Spain

    Belén Cruz Zapata, José Luis Fernández-Alemán & Ambrosio Toval

  2. Software Project Management Research Team, ENSIAS, Mohammed V Souissi University, Rabat, Morocco

    Ali Idri

Authors
  1. Belén Cruz Zapata
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  2. José Luis Fernández-Alemán
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  3. Ali Idri
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  4. Ambrosio Toval
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Belén Cruz Zapata.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Mobile Systems

Appendixes

Appendixes

Appendix 1

Table 7

Table 7 Data extracted for RQ1, RQ2 and RQ3
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Table 8

Table 8 Data extracted for RQ4
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Table 9

Table 9 Data extracted for RQ5 and RQ6
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Table 10

Table 10 Data extraction for RQ7, RQ8 and RQ9
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Appendix 2

Table 11

Table 11 Task session information
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Zapata, B.C., Fernández-Alemán, J.L., Idri, A. et al. Empirical Studies on Usability of mHealth Apps: A Systematic Literature Review. J Med Syst 39, 1 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-014-0182-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-014-0182-2

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