Exploring User Learnability and Learning Performance in an App for Depression: Usability Study.

Area of Science:

• Digital mental health
• Behavioral interventions
• Cognitive therapy

Background:

• Mental health apps often offer limited functionality, focusing on tracking or psychoeducation.
• The capacity of apps to teach users core intervention skills remains unclear.
• Thought Challenger is a skill-building app designed to teach cognitive restructuring, a key component of cognitive therapy for depression.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the learnability of the Thought Challenger app.
• To assess the learning performance of users after initial engagement with the app.

Main Methods:

• Twenty adults underwent in-lab usability testing with two app interactions.
• Learnability assessed via completion times, error rates, and psychologist ratings.
• Learning performance measured by a cognitive therapy knowledge and skills test.
• Nonparametric tests compared outcomes based on depression severity and pre/post-test scores.

Main Results:

• Most task completion times were under 5 minutes with minimal errors (1.2%).
• Users successfully completed cognitive therapy thought records.
• Significant improvement in cognitive therapy knowledge and skills was observed post-app use (P=.009).

Conclusions:

• Thought Challenger met its learning objectives during initial use with target end-users.
• The app shows potential for teaching intervention skills.
• Findings suggest digital tools can effectively facilitate learning of therapeutic techniques.