Usability of the BigO system in pediatric obesity treatment: A mixed-methods evaluation of clinical end-users

To assess technical usability of the BigO app and clinical portal among diverse participants and explore the overall user experiences of both.

Methods included technical usability testing by measuring the relative user efficiency score (RUS) for the app and measuring Relative User Efficiency (RUE) using the 'think aloud' method with the clinical portal. Qualitative approaches involved focus groups with adolescent app users and semi-structured one-to-one interviews with clinician participants. Thematic analysis was applied to analyze qualitative data.

Clinical participants consisted of adolescents seeking treatment for severe obesity and were invited via telephone/face to face to attend technical usability testing and a focus group. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) and researchers using the BigO clinical portal interface were invited to participate in usability testing and semi-structured interviews.

From 14 families invited to attend, seven consented to join the study and four adolescents (mean age=13.8 (SD 0.8) years) participated. Additionally, six HCPs and one pediatric obesity researcher took part. RUS for adolescents indicated that the tasks required of them via myBigO app were feasible, and technically efficient. No user-related errors were observed during tasks. Technical barriers reported by adolescents included notifications of battery optimization, misunderstanding image annotation language, and compatibility challenges with certain phone models. RUS for the HCPs and researcher indicated that basic technical skills are a potential barrier for clinical portal use and qualitative findings revealed that clinical users wanted a logging option for monitoring goals and providing feedback on the portal.

Our study provided valuable formative findings from clinical end-users in Ireland indicating that adolescents being treated for obesity rated myBigO app as usable, acceptable and that it may assist other key stakeholders to understand food marketing and to monitor dietary and physical activity behaviors. Several key suggestions for future iterations of the clinical portal were provided to enhance its value in pediatric obesity treatment.