Rapid Design of a Student-Centred App for Musculoskeletal Clinical Skills: An Example of a Theoretically Informed...

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Medical Education Technology
• Mobile Learning

Background:

• The design process for educational mobile apps, particularly in health professional education, is often underreported, hindering the development of high-quality learning tools.
• A lack of structured methodologies for creating mobile learning applications may contribute to the scarcity of effective resources for medical students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a production-ready wireframe model for a minimally viable mobile application.
• To support the learning of musculoskeletal (MSK) clinical skills among medical students.
• To create a student-informed design based on user needs and preferences.

Main Methods:

• Combined the Information Systems Research (ISR) framework with Design Thinking principles for a systematic app design process.
• Conducted a focus group with students to identify key attributes for the mobile app.
• Employed iterative prototyping with three cycles of student review and refinement.

Main Results:

• Identified five key themes from student feedback: interactive usability, environment, clear layout, anatomy/pathology content, and cultural safety/red flags.
• Developed a final wireframe design through iterative student feedback and design improvements.
• The student-centered approach, guided by design frameworks, enabled rapid prototyping within a ten-week timeframe.

Conclusions:

• A student-centered, framework-guided approach can efficiently produce a minimally viable mobile learning product.
• The developed mobile app design effectively addresses student needs for learning musculoskeletal clinical skills.
• Student input highlighted the potential for mobile apps to incorporate and support cultural safety learning in medical education.