Abstract
In South Africa, the percentage of the population diagnosed with diabetes is increasing each year. On the African continent, South Africa has been found to have one of the most significant diabetic communities. Numerous health applications are available to assist diabetic patients to monitor and manage their health, blood glucose, diet and physical activity. However, the uptake of these applications has not been as widespread as was expected due to usability issues, among other factors. The purpose of the study is to produce a framework that can be used to evaluate how usability will influence the intention to use health applications by diabetic patients in South Africa. The study made use of the qualitative research approach. The framework was developed making use of a literature review after which it was tested and refined through the evaluation of the seven most popular free diabetic applications on Google Play Store. The study found that health applications should be easy to learn, efficient to use, easy to remember, have few errors and be subjectively pleasing for patients. The study further recommends that software developers should take into consideration usability guidelines and evaluations as it improves effectiveness and efficiency of a diabetic health app.
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Acknowledgments
This research project was jointly funded by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and Forte, the Swedish Research Council for Welfare, Working Life and Welfare.
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Ngamntwini, B., Cilliers, L. (2019). A Usability Framework for Diabetic Health Applications in South Africa. In: Arai, K., Bhatia, R., Kapoor, S. (eds) Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2018. FTC 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 881. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02683-7_30
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