User-Centered Evaluations with Older Adults: Testing the Usability of a Mobile Health System for Heart Failure Self-Management

摘要

Many older adults living with heart failure struggle to follow recommended self-management routines. Tornhelp older adults with heart failure more effectively and efficiently self-manage their disease, we developedrnEngage, a mobile health application promoting the performance, logging, and sharing of routine selfmanagementrnbehaviors. This paper reports on the usability evaluation of the Engage system with 15 olderrnadults with heart failure and informal caregivers. In two phases, participants used Engage during a task-basedrnusability test (n=5) and a scenario-based usability test (n=10). Usability and performance data were assessedrnthrough video-recorded observation and the administration of the system usability scale (SUS) and NASArnTask Load Index (TLX). We found that task-based testing was useful in quickly identifying problems withinrnour application, but scenario-based testing elicited more valuable feedback from older adults. A comparisonrnof the different evaluation methods used and the discussion of the challenges encountered provide multiplernimplications for the practice of usability testing of mobile health products with older adults.