HEARTMAN
2018 | Meaningful Interactions Lab | Leuven, Belgium
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Team
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Researchers form Sapienza University, Ghent University, National Research Council and KU Leuven. Other partners include ATOS Spain SA, SenLab, MEGA Electronics Ltd and European Heart Network.
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My role: UX researcher
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Deliverables​
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Research summary
Scenario for a video about HeartMan
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Publications​
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Design trade-offs in self-management technology: the HeartMan case
Behaviour & Information Technology - July 2019
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mhealth and psycho-physical well-being
NordiCHI '18 - October 2018
Evaluating a self-management app for people with heart failure
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Heart failure is the main reason for hospitalization for people over the age of 65. As there is no cure, disease management is crucial. Self-management apps can help people with heart failure to manage their condition and treatment.
HeartMan is a research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program that developed an app that helps people with heart failure to manage their condition and treatment. It encourages them to adopt a healthy lifestyle via personalized advice about diet, physical activity and mental wellbeing and reminds them to take their medication.
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Approach
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My role was to evaluate the user experience of the app after patients used it for 3-4 months in a clinical trial in Belgium. I was involved in the project October 2018 through December 2018.
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People in different contexts may use digital products for different purposes. So it's important to understand how these different contexts influence the way that people adapt or modify digital products.
In the evaluation I focused on patients’ experience in their context, integrating parts of their home environment and the support they get from family members and friends.
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Process
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Preparation
We created an interview guideline using a framework that describes how people use technology to manage a medical condition or treatment in their own context. Themes include people, resources, places, routines, knowledge, control and motivation.
Recruitment
​10 participants were recruited via the clinical HeartMan trial in Belgium. I contacted them via phone to invite them to participate in a study about their experience with HeartMan. Some participants experienced technical problems during the trial and some quit the trial before it ended. In the sampling I accounted for this by including one participant that had already quit the trial.
Fieldwork
Participants participated in the evaluation after they used HeartMan for 3 - 4 months. The interviews took 1 - 1.5 hours and we talked about their experience with the HeartMan system.
Analysis
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After the interview sessions, I transcribed all interviews and conducted the analysis. First, I coded all relevant themes for each interview. Then I identified common themes over the participants. With the common themes mapped out, I created a detailed research summary that highlighted the patterns and trends that I found, adding quotes from the interviews, as well as suggestions for next steps.
Main findings
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Participants enjoyed using the HeartMan system as it encouraged them to do exercises and be more physically active.
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They found the information about diet quite useful.
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For some participants keeping track of their health made them feel more aware of their health.
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However, HeartMan was offering little flexibility in how participants manage their condition and treatment.
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Post-script
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Joys
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Visiting people at their homes and listening to their stories.
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Co-organizing and facilitating a co-design workshop at NordiCHI was exciting.
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Challenges
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There can be emotional effects in observing and talking to people with chronic conditions. People were quite open to talk about their experiences and they shared stories about difficulties they experienced such as loneliness and depression.
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Communicating and working together with project partners spread out trough Europe was challenging at times.
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Learnings
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Prior to interviewing people in a sensitive context, it can be helpful to reflect on what the topic means to you and how this might influence the interview.
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