Evaluating an Mhealth Application for Cancer Survivors with Disabilities Through Usability Testing

Despite the high prevalence of cancer incidences and survivorship, there is a lack of guidance when transitioning from active cancer treatment to long-term cancer survivorship. This leaves the needs of many cancer survivors unaddressed as they struggle to manage the effects of long- term survivorship on their own, impacting their overall health, quality of life, and social participation. We developed a prototype of a self-management mobile health (mHealth) application to empower cancer survivors with disabilities resulting from cancer and its treatment through mindfulness practices, experience validation, self-advocacy, and self-efficacy. We conducted usability testing on the prototype with ten cancer survivors with disabilities. Each session was conducted and recorded over Zoom. During the session, participants were asked to complete a set of eight tasks through Ballpark, an online software to facilitate usability testing. Participants were given tasks to complete, questions to answer on their satisfaction with each task, and time to think aloud while playing with the current prototype. Participants also completed the System Usability Scale (SUS), a 10-item questionnaire measuring usability, as well as open-ended questions on their likes and dislikes of the app. We found that participants liked the educational content and videos, but struggled with the community section of the prototype and some of the icon sizes. In addition to the participants’ qualitative feedback, we will report on participants’ satisfaction with the app as measured through their satisfaction scores, its effectiveness as measured by the percent of task completion without help, and its efficiency through the number of misclicks and the time taken to complete each task. This research will lead to a full-scale mobile Web application best suited to empower cancer survivors with disabilities