Designing User Experience in eHealth Applications for Young-Age Epilepsy

Thumbnail Image

Files

master_Lentini_Pietro_2022.pdf (2.85 MB)

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Unless otherwise stated, all rights belong to the author. You may download, display and print this publication for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.

Authors

Date

2022-12-12

Department

Major/Subject

Human Computer Interaction and Design

Mcode

SCI3020

Degree programme

Master's Programme in ICT Innovation

Language

en

Pages

135+10

Series

Abstract

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases in the world. One of the problems for families with children with epilepsy is nocturnal seizures: it’s important to prevent them or to promptly intervene, as they can be life-threatening. FightTheStroke foundation supports these families with MirrorHR, a mHealth application for epilepsy self-management. This thesis aimed to analyze the user needs and pain points of parents with children with epilepsy, assess the usability of MirrorHR, and evaluate a new remote monitoring scenario for the Real-Time Monitoring feature of the application. To achieve these objectives, extensive background research was conducted, starting with the more general scope of eHealth, and then exploring in more detail the various aspects surrounding epilepsy and the state of the art of digital solutions for epilepsy self-management and seizure detection. Based on this, a study was conducted on 9 users of the application, which consisted of two semi-structured qualitative interviews, each followed by a post-interview anonymous questionnaire. From the study, user needs and pain points were formulated and divided into 4 categories: Diagnostic journey, Epilepsy management, Educational support, and Parental support; more generic pain points on epilepsy self-management applications were also found and are considered as a separate additional category; good usability of the application was found, but some difficulties encountered by some users were also noted; ultimately, a new remote monitoring scenario was identified, in which MirrorHR monitoring functionality can also be used with the devices of different caregivers and at greater distances than before. A prototype was designed and developed for this scenario. The results of the study, along with the prototype, were positively evaluated by the participants. User needs and pain points provide useful insights for MirrorHR and other epilepsy self-management applications, as well as some more generic pain points may be of value for other mHealth applications. The analysis that led to the development of the identified scenario may be useful for other mHealth application scenarios that also consider children.

Description

Supervisor

Viitanen, Johanna

Thesis advisor

D'Angelo, Roberto

Keywords

HCI, healthcare, epilepsy, eHealth, UX, remote monitoring scenarios

Other note

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202212187103

Collections

[dipl] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI