Applicability of the user engagement scale to mobile health : a survey-based quantitative study

Background: There has recently been exponential growth in the development and use of health apps on mobile phones. As with most mobile apps, however, the majority of users abandon them quickly and after minimal use. One of the most critical factors for the success of a health app is how to support users’ commitment to their health. Despite increased interest from researchers in mobile health, few studies have examined the measurement of user engagement with health apps. Objective: User engagement is a multidimensional, complex phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the concept of user engagement and, in particular, to demonstrate the applicability of a user engagement scale (UES) to mobile health apps. Methods: To determine the measurability of user engagement in a mobile health context, a UES was employed, which is a psychometric tool to measure user engagement with a digital system. This was adapted to Ada, developed by Ada Health, an artificial intelligence–powered personalized health guide that helps people understand their health. A principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was conducted on 30 items. In addition, sum scores as means of each subscale were calculated. Results: Survey data from 73 Ada users were analyzed. PCA was determined to be suitable, as verified by the sampling adequacy of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin=0.858, a significant Bartlett test of sphericity (χ2300=1127.1; P<.001), and communalities mostly within the 0.7 range. Although 5 items had to be removed because of low factor loadings, the results of the remaining 25 items revealed 4 attributes: perceived usability, aesthetic appeal, reward, and focused attention. Ada users showed the highest engagement level with perceived usability, with a value of 294, followed by aesthetic appeal, reward, and focused attention. Conclusions: Although the UES was deployed in German and adapted to another digital domain, PCA yielded consistent subscales and a 4-factor structure. This indicates that user engagement with health apps can be assessed with the German version of the UES. These results can benefit related mobile health app engagement research and may be of importance to marketers and app developers

Website evaluation measures, website credibility and user engagement for municipal website

This paper attempts to explore website evaluation measures specifically for information driven website such Municipal electronic government website toward website credibility and user engagement. Despite overwhelming of information source in online environment, the role of government website as a prominent government information provider becomes less preferred. Even, rapid development and continuous assessment been done by the government bodies to enhance and make utilize their website by the users, issues such usability problem, low popularity ranking and less user engagement still been reported. Therefore, the first part of this article reviews on existing assessment measures for websites done by scholars and also by practitioners. Then, in the second part of this article presents some finding on self evaluation of ten municipal website around Klang valley, Malaysia in term of popularity ranking and user engagement measure (bounce rate, Daily Pageviews per Visitor, and Daily Time on Site). Through related literatures reviewed, less study done previously includes overall or multiple measures for evaluation of information driven website. Estimation result of popularity ranking and user engagement percentage among municipal website also shows that there is still need some improvement to make the gateway of Malaysia electronic government become more favorable and engaging

Revisiting User Engagement: Concepts, Themes, and Opportunities

Given the proliferation of information technology (IT), the growing research interest across diverse disciplines in user engagement with IT is unsurprising. However, defining, designing for, and evaluating user engagement remain complex issues within the information systems community, prompting researchers to call for a systematic understanding of these areas. To bridge this gap, this review presents an analysis of the main themes of 59 empirical studies focusing on the conceptualization, operationalization, antecedents, consequences, and forms of user engagement. Based on the findings of this review, opportunities for future research that address study settings, emerging technologies, the factor structure and forms of user engagement, as well as user engagement frameworks, are presented. As technological advances continue to shape how users engage with IT, the concept of user engagement should be refined and elaborated on according to the research context

The influence of image interactivity upon user engagement when using mobile touch screens

Touch screens are a key component of consumer mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as an increasingly common self-service component of information retrieval on fixed screens and mobile devices in-store. The ubiquity of touch screens in daily life increases consumer accessibility and extended use for shopping, whilst software innovations have increased the functionality of touch screens, for example the extent to which images respond to fingertip control. This study examines how users engage with interactive visual rotation and tactile simulation features while browsing fashion clothing products on touch screen devices and thus contributes to retail touch screen research that previously focused on in-store kiosks and window displays. Findings show that three dimensions of user engagement (endurability, novelty and felt involvement) are positively influenced by both forms of manipulation. In order to examine the extent to which touch screen user engagement varies with individual preferences for an in-store experience, the paper also examines whether user engagement outcomes are mediated by an individual's need for physical touch. Findings indicate that the need for touch does not explain the variance between individuals. We conclude that touch screen technology complements the physical retail environment

Validating and Developing the User Engagement Scale in Web-based Visual Information Searching

Guided by the theoretical frameworks of interactive information searching and user engagement (UE), this study proposed sense discovery (SD) as a UE attribute and suggested a refined four-factor user engagement scale (UES) model for the measurement of users’ psychological involvement in web-based visual information searching. Using a mixed-methods approach based on a survey, this study confirmed the inter-item reliability of the original six-factor UES in three visual contexts—a general visual context, image searching on Google (ISG), and video searching on YouTube (VSY). Principal component analyses (PCA) partially confirmed the internal consistency of the original six UE subscales and suggested conceptual overlaps among four of six original subscales. Through thematic and sentiment analyses of the participants’ visual information needs, the study further explored their positive experience and categorized a total of eight items related to SD. Based on the findings, a refined four-factor UES model, which can be flexibly administered, is proposed to measure users’ psychological involvement in web-based visual information searching

A user centred approach to the modelling of contextualised experience adaptation in relation to video consumption

This research focused on the development of a user centric framework for the interpretation of contextualised TV and video viewing experiences (UX). Methods to address content overload and provide better contextualisation when consuming video have been an area of academic discussion for almost 20 years (Burke, Felfernig, & Goker, 2011). However over the same period technical system design for video has actually moved away from attempts to model the nature of real viewing contexts. With now near ubiquitous access to video from a range of disparate devices the addition of contextualisation within video applications and devices represents an opportunity in terms of improving viewer UX. Three user studies were carried out to inform development of the framework and employed mixed method approaches. The first focused on understanding where video is watched and the contextual factors that defined those places as viewing situations. This study derived eight Archetype viewing situations and associated contextual cues. The second study measured viewing UX in context. Significant differences in subjective ratings for measured UX were found when viewing was compared within subjects across Viewing Archetype situations. A third study characterised viewing UX, identifying behavioural, environmental and technological factors which through observed frequency and duration were identified as indicative enablers and detractors in the creation of viewing UX. Concepts generated within the studies that related to viewing context identification and viewing UX classification through experiential factors were integrated into the framework. The framework provides a way through which to identify, describe and improve viewing UX across contexts. Additionally the framework was referenced to develop an exemplar system model for contextual adaptation in order to show its relevance to the generation of technical system design. Finally information for designers was created in the form of scenarios and suggestions for use in order to bring the framework to life as a resource for development teams