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Designing an Indoor Air Quality Monitoring App for Asthma Management in Children: User-Centered Design Approach
Sunyoung Kim1, Yunoh Park2, Matthew K Ackerman1
1School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States.
Insights
This study developed two mobile apps, AirBuddy and AirPet, to help children with asthma monitor indoor air quality and manage their condition. The user-centered design focused on making indoor air quality monitoring engaging and accessible for pediatric asthma management.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Pediatric Chronic Disease Management
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Indoor air pollution is a significant trigger for pediatric asthma.
- Current mobile applications do not adequately support children in monitoring or improving indoor air quality for asthma management.
- Engaging children in secondary environmental prevention for asthma is a promising approach.
Purpose of the Study:
- To design a mobile application that empowers children to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma symptoms.
- To utilize a user-centered, iterative design process for app development.
- To address the gap in existing digital tools for pediatric asthma self-management related to environmental triggers.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a review of existing indoor air quality and asthma management apps for children.
- Performed semistructured interviews with 12 children diagnosed with asthma.
- Employed an iterative prototyping methodology, including evaluation and revision cycles based on user feedback.
Main Results:
- User feedback highlighted specific needs and perspectives, directly informing the final app designs.
- Two distinct app versions were developed: AirBuddy for direct indoor air quality information and AirPet for gamified monitoring.
- The design process identified key considerations for child-friendly applications, such as balancing information clarity and engagement.
Conclusions:
- An iterative, user-centered design process successfully yielded two app prototypes (AirBuddy and AirPet) for children with asthma.
- Key insights include the importance of balancing expressivity with brevity and understanding the long-term impact of gamification in pediatric apps.
- Future research will involve a longitudinal study to assess the real-world effectiveness of the developed applications.
Background:
Indoor air pollution is a well-known risk factor that triggers and exacerbates asthma, the most common pediatric chronic disease. Using a mobile app to monitor indoor air quality could be promising in engaging children in keeping their indoor air quality clean and healthy as secondary environmental prevention for asthma management. However, no app is available to allow children to monitor, assess, and improve their indoor air quality.
Objective:
This study aims to design a mobile app that encourages children to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma conditions through a user-centered, iterative design approach.
Methods:
We reviewed existing apps for indoor air quality monitoring or asthma management for children and conducted two sets of semistructured interviews with 12 children with asthma. We then iteratively created prototypes and evaluated and revised them.
Results:
Participants raised a series of outstanding questions on the prototype features and content that described their needs and perspectives, which informed the final designs. Following the identified requirements and recommendations, we developed two versions of the app: AirBuddy for presenting concrete information for indoor air quality and AirPet for gamifying the practice of monitoring indoor air quality.
Conclusions:
By following an iterative, user-centered design process, we developed two versions of an app to encourage children with asthma to monitor indoor air quality and track their asthma condition. The user-centered design approach revealed two crucial aspects that require deeper consideration when creating a child-friendly app, including balancing brevity and expressivity and considering the longitudinal effects of gamification. As a next step, we plan to conduct a longitudinal deployment study to evaluate the real-world effects of our apps.
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