The relationship between users’ technology approaches and experiences in a child development mobile application

Health self-monitoring information and communication technologies (ICTs) need to consider the impact of the technology competencies and attitudes of their users. Through this lens, we explored positive user experience in babyTRACKS, a mobile application for tracking early child development, while also considering the influence of users’ actual use of the system and their children’s developmental evaluations within the application. Mothers of 260 young children used babyTRACKS for two weeks, documenting their children’s developmental milestone histories and receiving personal developmental percentile evaluations computed based on the existing 3500+ user population. Questionnaires assessed their experience with the application and their individual approaches towards technology. Positive user experience with babyTRACKS was associated with user attitude toward solving technological problems, mediated by frequency of engagement in internet activity. Users who have a proactive approach toward solving technology problems, engage in a wide range of internet activities, and/or view the internet as integral to their lives had a better experience with babyTRACKS than users who did not. Positive user experience was not associated with the children’s developmental evaluation results nor the mother’s level of usage of the system. User technology competences and attitudes can impact experience in ICTs for health self-monitoring. Screening evaluation results, whether poor or reassuring, do not necessarily lower nor raise user satisfaction and can assist users in communicating their concerns with their healthcare providers.