Exploring How Older Adults Experience semAPP, a 360° Media-Based Tool for Memory Assessment: Qualitative Study

Technology is already a part of our daily lives, and its influence is growing rapidly. This evolution has not spared the health care field. Nowadays, a crucial challenge is considering aspects such as design, development, and implementation, highlighting their functionality, ease of use, compatibility, performance, and safety when a new technological tool is developed. As noted in many works, the abandonment rate is usually higher when a user has a terrible experience with these instruments. It would be appropriate to incorporate the final users-whether they are patients, health care professionals, or both-in the stages of instrument design to understand their needs and preferences. Since most apps that fail did not include end users and health care professionals in the development phase, their involvement at all stages of app development may increase their commitment and improve integration, self-management, and health outcomes.

This study aims (1) to develop semAPP (spatial and episodic memory assessment application), a 360° media-based tool, to assess memory in aging by simulating a real-life situation and (2) to test the usability of the app and the connected experience in an end-user population.

A total of 34 older adults participated in the study: 16 (47%) healthy individuals and 18 (53%) patients with mild cognitive impairment. They used semAPP and completed qualitative and quantitative measures. The app includes 2 parts: object recognition and spatial memory tasks. During the first task, users have to navigate in an apartment freely and visit rooms, and then they must recognize the right map of the house. In the second task, users are immersed in a living room, and they have to encode and then recall some target objects, simulating a relocation. We deployed this app on an 11.2-inch iPad, and we tested its usability and the experience of users interacting with the app. We conducted descriptive analyses for both the entire sample and each subgroup; we also conducted parametric and correlation analyses to compare groups and to examine the relationship between task execution and the virtual experience, as well as the acceptance of technology.

Both groups judged the app as an easy-to-use tool, and they were willing to use it. Moreover, the results match the idea that usability might be influenced by different factors depending on instrument and personal features, such as presentation, functionality, system performance, interactive behavior, attitudes, skills, and personality.

The findings support the possibility of using semAPP in older patients, as well as the importance of designing and evaluating new technological tools, considering not only the general population but also the specific target ones.