Rapid Design of a Student-Centred App for Musculoskeletal Clinical Skills: An Example of a Theoretically Informed Approach to Developing Apps for Learning

TL;DR

This paper describes a student-centered approach to rapidly design a mobile app for learning musculoskeletal clinical skills using design frameworks and student feedback.

Contribution

A theoretically informed, student-centered process for designing a minimally viable medical education mobile app in ten weeks.

Findings

A student focus group identified five key themes for the app: interactive usability, environment, layout, anatomy/pathology, and cultural safety.

The app prototype was refined through three cycles of student review and improvement.

The design process supported rapid, iterative development and incorporated cultural safety learning.

Abstract

The process to design mobile apps for learning are infrequently reported and focus more on evaluation than process. This lack of clear process for health professional education mobile apps may explain the lack of quality mobile apps to support medical student learning.

The goal of this project was to develop a student informed ready for production wireframe model of a minimally viable mobile app to support learning of musculoskeletal (MSK) clinical skills.

The Information Systems Research (ISR) framework and Design Thinking were combined for the mobile app design. The process followed the cycles and modes of the combined framework to; systematically review available apps, use a focus group to identify attributes of the app valued by students, define the initial plan for the mobile app, develop an app prototype, and test and refine it with students.

The student focus group data had five themes: 1) interactive usability, 2) environment, 3) clear and concise layout, 4) anatomy and pathology, 5) cultural safety and ‘red flags’. The prototyping of the app went through three cycles of student review and improvement to produce a final design ready for app development.

We used a student-centred approach guided by design frameworks to design a minimally viable product mobile app to support learning of MSK clinical skills in ten weeks with a small team. The framework supported nonlinear, iterative, rapid prototyping. Student data converged and diverged with the MSK teaching methods literature. Of note our students requested cultural safety learning in the app design, suggesting mobile apps could support cultural safety learning.

Figures