ChroniUXMag: A Persona-Driven Framework for Inclusive mHealth Requirements Engineering

2025-11-23

AI Summary

mHealth applications for chronic disease management commonly suffer from poor accessibility, insufficient inclusivity, and low user retention—largely because conventional requirements engineering fails to capture the evolving health-related needs of diverse patient populations. To address this, we propose a systematic, inclusive requirements engineering framework. First, we identify 13 critical inclusivity dimensions—including trust, digital literacy, cultural background, and dependency—through a systematic literature review, focus groups, expert interviews, and a large-scale survey. Second, we innovatively integrate and extend the InclusiveMag and GenderMag methods to construct dynamic, context-sensitive personas and develop an adapted cognitive walkthrough checklist that uncovers deep-seated, often overlooked barriers beyond traditional usability assessments. The framework significantly enhances the comprehensiveness, reproducibility, and generalizability of requirements elicitation, offering a practical, evidence-based methodology to advance inclusive mHealth design.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Conceptual Inference and Reasoning
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Preferences

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Metrics for user behavior and evaluating success
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) applications are increasingly adopted for chronic disease management, yet they face persistent challenges related to accessibility, inclusivity, and sustained engagement. Patients' needs evolve dynamically with their health progression, adherence, and caregiver support, creating unique requirements engineering (RE) challenges that traditional approaches often overlook. This study introduces ChroniUXMag, a framework for eliciting and analysing inclusivity requirements in mHealth design. Building on InclusiveMag and GenderMag principles, the framework aims to help researchers and practitioners systematically capture and evaluate factors that influence how individuals with chronic conditions perceive, trust, and interact with mHealth systems. The framework was developed through two stages of the InclusiveMag process. In the first stage, inclusivity facets were identified through a systematic literature review, focus groups, interviews, and a large-scale survey. In the second stage, these facets were synthesised into personas representing diverse health situations, attitudes, and digital practices, and integrated into an adapted cognitive walkthrough form. Thirteen facets were identified that capture the socio-technical complexity of mHealth use, including trust, digital literacy, dependency, and cultural context. These facets support structured, persona-driven evaluations that reveal inclusivity barriers often missed by traditional usability assessments. ChroniUXMag contributes to RE by offering a reproducible, evidence-based approach for embedding inclusivity into mHealth requirements. Future work will extend the third stage Apply through practitioner-led evaluation in real-world design contexts.

Problem

• Addressing inclusivity barriers in mHealth chronic disease applications
• Capturing evolving patient needs for accessibility and engagement
• Systematically evaluating socio-technical factors affecting mHealth adoption

Innovation

• Persona-driven framework for inclusive mHealth requirements
• Synthesized inclusivity facets into personas and walkthrough forms
• Evidence-based approach embedding inclusivity into mHealth design