AN INVESTIGATION OF USER INTERFACE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A MOBILE HEALTH SYSTEM FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DEXTERITY IMPAIRMENTS

Mobile health (mHealth) systems have a great potential to empower individuals with chronic disease and disabilities to engage in preventive self-care. Before persons with disabilities can harness the potential of mhealth, the accessibility of mhealth systems should be addressed. An innovative mHealth system called iMHere (Internet Mobile Health and Rehabilitation) has been developed at the University of Pittsburgh to support self-care and adherence to self-care regimens for individuals with spina bifida and other complex conditions who are vulnerable to secondary complications. However, the existing design of the iMHere system was not designed to accommodate users with dexterity impairments. The overall goal of this research is to design and transform an existing mHealth system to make it more usable and accessible for users with dexterity impairment. To achieve this goal, three studies were conducted: Evaluation, Design and Development, and Validation of personalization and accessibility design in mobile health apps. The first study (Evaluation) was aimed to identify the barriers of the original iMHere apps to accessibility, and to explore the necessary features that may improve users’ experiences. The second study (Design and Development) was aimed to develop innovative designs to improve the accessibility and usability of the mHealth system. The third study (Validation) was aimed to evaluate the users’ acceptance of and preferences regarding the personalized and accessible mHealth services on a smartphone. The accessible design and development model that is presented in this dissertation incorporates user-interface components related to physical presentation (widgets, visual cues) and navigation (activity flow and layout order). Personalization that provides the ability for a user to modify the appearance of content, such as the size of the icons and the color of text, are proposed as an optimal solution to address potential issues and barriers to accessibility. The importance of personalization strategies for accessibility is also discussed