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The DECENT Toolkit to Support Design of User Engagement of Mobile Health Technologies from a Practice Theory Perspective

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Co-creating for Context in the Transfer and Diffusion of IT (TDIT 2022)

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Abstract

User engagement is critical for the successful adoption and use of mobile health apps, but it is also influenced by a variety of factors that are not always easily accessible or quantified by designers in practice. The goal of this paper is to facilitate the application of activity theory and the communicative ecological framework to uncover various socio-cultural contexts for user engagement designs using the Design Process Engagement Enhancement System (DECENT) toolkit. The DECENT toolkit is an innovative theory-based design tool and associated method that includes socio-cultural filtration and a socio-cultural checklist that are augmented in the phases of the user-centered design model. This paper presents a set of consolidating concepts to guide future design practice which broaden designers’ knowledge of mobile health app designs for user engagement. Finally, to fully explain and design for user engagement in mobile health, an integrated approach incorporating a variety of technological and socio-cultural factors is presented.

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Acknowledgments

This research was conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant Agreement No. Grant 18/CRT/6222 at the ADAPT SFI Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin. The ADAPT SFI Centre for Digital Content Technology is funded by Science Foundation Ireland through the SFI Research Centres Programme and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through Grant #13/RC/2106_P2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ADAPT Centre, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Tochukwu Ikwunne, Lucy Hederman & P. J. Wall

Authors
  1. Tochukwu Ikwunne
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  2. Lucy Hederman
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  3. P. J. Wall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tochukwu Ikwunne .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK

    Amany Elbanna

  2. University of Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland

    Shane McLoughlin

  3. Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Yogesh K. Dwivedi

  4. University of Maynooth, Maynooth, Kildare, Ireland

    Brian Donnellan

  5. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    David Wastell

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Ikwunne, T., Hederman, L., Wall, P.J. (2022). The DECENT Toolkit to Support Design of User Engagement of Mobile Health Technologies from a Practice Theory Perspective. In: Elbanna, A., McLoughlin, S., Dwivedi, Y.K., Donnellan, B., Wastell, D. (eds) Co-creating for Context in the Transfer and Diffusion of IT. TDIT 2022. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 660. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17968-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17968-6_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17967-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17968-6

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