Universally Accessible mHealth Apps for Older Adults: Towards Increasing Adoption and Sustained Engagement

Mobile health (mHealth) applications are emerging as a convenient approach to monitoring and tracking health informatics and promoting health-related behaviors. Despite proven health benefits of these systems, many are not designed in consideration of older users. Studies report low or inconsistent usage and high abandonment among these applications, often attributed to poor motivation and engagement strategies utilized in the workflow of the application. However, we posit that a lack in the universal access of a mHealth interface may also contribute to low and inconsistent usage, and is an equally important factor of consideration when designing a product. The approach of universal design should be applied when designing, developing, and evaluating mHealth applications as a consideration to making products usable by the general population. The universal design mobile interface guidelines support the design and development of mobile applications that are accessible by all users equally. As an adaptation to these guidelines, we outline a tool for evaluating mHealth applications for usability and perceived usefulness. We also discuss the importance of universally designed interfaces in the adoption and sustained engagement of mHealth applications. Future work in this research area aims to utilize this approach in the evaluation of mHealth apps that target physical activity. This paper contributes to the field of human-computer interaction as it better positions mHealth applications to be adopted by a wider subset of the general population, increasing the likelihood of individuals experiencing associated health-related benefits.