Personas for Better Targeted eHealth Technologies: User-Centered Design Approach

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Digital Health
• User-Centered Design

Background:

• eHealth technologies show potential for chronic disease self-management but often fail due to insufficient focus on end-user needs.
• User-centered design, specifically personas, is crucial for aligning technology with user context throughout development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To integrate multiple persona development approaches into the Persona Approach Twente.
• To create a holistic and structured method for persona development aligned with iterative eHealth development.

Main Methods:

• A secondary data analysis using Partitioning Around Medoids clustering was performed in three steps.
• Step 1: Analysis of health-related electronic patient record data.
• Steps 2 & 3: Integration of person-related interview/questionnaire data and log data, respectively.

Main Results:

• Clustering identified 2 clusters in Step 1, 2 clusters in Step 2, and 3 clusters in Step 3.
• Average silhouette widths indicated varying degrees of cluster distinctiveness across steps.

Conclusions:

• The Persona Approach Twente is adaptable for mixed data types and aligns with iterative eHealth development.
• The approach supports using diverse characteristics beyond standard medical/demographic data.
• Data quality and suitability for quantitative clustering present challenges.