top of page
Improving Care Management for Children with Asthma
Working closely with asthma care specialists to research the young asthmatic experience and recommend design guidelines for self-management.
UX/UI DESIGN & RESEARCH • MASTER'S THESIS • 2021
PROCESS
Problem Definition
Persuasive Design
Interviews to Define Context
Physician Workshop
Ideation & Prototyping
Findings
UX/UI TEAM
Myself (study author, UX/UI design, research)
OUTCOME
Guidelines for the design of digital, pediatric asthma self-monitoring apps, outlined in this thesis.
AsthmaTuner app with companion digital spirometer
Problem Definition
Asthma is the most common chronic disease among children worldwide, but mobile apps aimed at self-management are often not designed for younger patients' unique contexts and abilities.
AsthmaTuner is a Stockholm-based digital health startup helping people with asthma live symptom-free. While working there, I noticed children engaged with AsthmaTuner from clinical studies and the opportunities we’d had to observe these users, but saw an opportunity to explore how the experience could be improved for them.
Persuasive Design
I used the Persuasive System Design (PSD) model as a guide for exploring the experiences of 10-12 year old asthmatics. Persuasive principles are design choices that motivate a target behavior; for example, rewarding a user for their behavior is called the Reward principle - this persuades them to continue doing it in hopes of being rewarded again.
Persuasive design has already been recommended as a solution to poor adherence rates in mobile health apps. However, applying it effectively relies on a thorough understanding of user context; therefore, the PSD model sets context definition as the first step in designing a persuasive system.
Example of Reward Principle in the Duolingo App (not my design)
Phases in Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model
Interviews to Define Context
Due to ethical limitations on the availability of real patients, I interviewed physicians who specialize in pediatric asthma care about their experiences and observations.
Previous research shows that major predictors of treatment adherence in children are consistent physician-patient relationships, familial attitudes towards treatment, and patients’ understanding of their condition. Some interview questions explored the participants’ observations on these predictors from their own work, but they could also contribute with challenges they’d seen.
Many interesting insights emerged from affinity diagramming the interviews, most of which I integrated into three personas. These personas cover some of the motivations and challenges faced by 10-12 year olds in self-managing their asthma. They also serve as a red thread throughout the rest of the study, to help trigger physicians' pre-understanding of the target group when evaluating the design.
Affinity diagramming post-interviews
Physician Workshop
After defining the user context, it was time to select which persuasive principles may be acceptable for an asthma self-management app for children. I did this together with two pediatric asthma care specialists in a 1.5 hour workshop.
Based on the interview insights, I narrowed down the PSD model's 28 persuasive principles to just 9 that were relevant for the context (see below). Before the workshop, the care specialists got a deck of cards defining these 9 principles. Then, during the workshop, they placed stickers onto the principles they thought would help motivate the pre-defined personas to self-manage their asthma. After discussing inconsistencies between the choices, 6 principles emerged as the most promising.
Ideation & Prototyping
Following the workshop, I redesigned the primary treatment tool flow in the AsthmaTuner app to include the chosen persuasive principles.
Personalization appears as theme and character customization. The user can choose between a light or dark theme and the design of an ‘asthma avatar.’
Simulation appears as a storyline between treatment steps that shows how triggers can lead to poorer lung function and more symptoms, which are remedied with regular treatment.
Social role appears as subtle messages to the user from the system. For example, when the user records their asthma triggers, “Got it!” and “Tell me more…” fade in at the top of the screen.
Similarity is limited to the symptom questions, which are divided into individual, swipeable cards that include simpler summaries alongside the phrasing set by international guidelines.
Authority appears towards the end, when the doctor’s role in the medication recommendation is emphasized.
Praise is already present at certain points in the original design, however the redesign praises the user for having controlled asthma.
Findings
I evaluated the acceptability of the persuasive redesign with new asthma care specialists. The results suggest that the Personalization and Simulation principles may be most acceptable at motivating 10-12 year olds to asthma self-management.
Though this would have to be confirmed by evaluating with 10-12 year olds, the findings offer AsthmaTuner alternative design considerations when engaging younger users. Furthermore, other digital, self-management solutions for children can also integrate the Personalization and Simulation principles into their designs in order to motivate based on user context.
Other Work
UX/UI DESIGN & RESEARCH
© 2023 by aleksandra.soltan@gmail.com
bottom of page