Key Components of Participatory Design Workshops for Digital Health Solutions: Nominal Group Technique and...

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Participatory design (PD) is crucial for developing effective digital health solutions, enhancing user acceptance, usability, and trust.
• Successful PD workshops require careful planning, but a comprehensive framework is currently lacking.
• Existing research highlights the importance of user involvement in digital health development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a framework detailing key components for planning and conducting participatory design workshops in digital health intervention development.
• To provide practical guidance and examples for designing and implementing PD workshops.
• To assess the feasibility and applicability of the developed framework.

Main Methods:

• Nominal group technique involving four participants with diverse backgrounds (computer science, health informatics, psychology, social anthropology) to identify key PD workshop components.
• Development of a framework with five main categories and 36 defined factors.
• Application of the framework by a PD expert to a digital health solution case study for multiple sclerosis fatigue self-management.

Main Results:

• A comprehensive framework with five categories (participatory process, involved persons and roles, workshop definition, setting, privacy and ethics, regulations) and 36 factors was established.
• The framework's application demonstrated its feasibility and applicability in a real-world digital health case study.
• The assessment identified shortcomings in the analyzed PD process, highlighting areas for improvement.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework offers practical guidance for conducting participatory design workshops in digital health.
• The framework aids in critically reflecting on and refining PD processes, potentially improving digital health solution usability, acceptance, and usefulness.
• Further research could extend the framework by incorporating user perspectives.