Key Variables for Effective eHealth Designs for Individuals With and Without Mental Health Disorders: 2^12-4...

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Digital Health
• Mental Health Technology

Background:

• eHealth applications offer convenience and tailored services but require intuitive design.
• Limited research exists on eHealth design usability for individuals with severe mental illness (SMI).
• SMI populations face challenges with treatment access and adherence, highlighting the need for accessible digital tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate how 12 design variables influence eHealth website usability for individuals with and without SMI.
• To identify specific design elements that enhance or hinder information retrieval for diverse user groups.

Main Methods:

• A fractional factorial experiment created 256 unique eHealth website designs by systematically varying 12 variables.
• 222 participants interacted with 8 randomly selected websites to find specific information.
• Mixed-effects regressions and classification/regression trees analyzed the impact of design variables on usability and efficiency.

Main Results:

• Navigational depth was the most critical factor influencing both usability and efficiency.
• The difference in usability between the best and worst designs ranged from 42% to 55% across user groups.
• Specific design similarities were identified for both high- and low-usability websites.

Conclusions:

• Evidence-based design strategies can significantly improve eHealth application performance for all users.
• Highly effective designs exist for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) and other SMIs.
• Optimizing eHealth design benefits all users, with distinct improvements possible for SMI populations.