“Always think about the user before developing an app. Once done, if there are usability errors, each correction is an odyssey.”

When talking about putting the user at the center of application development, it is not without reason.

Studying its behavior, anticipating errors and difficulties when interacting with the application or device and simplifying navigation flows are essential requirements for the sake of efficiency and the use of resources. And it is that any usability failure in an app already developed multiplies the costs compared to the necessary investment in design.

“Each correction is an odyssey,” warns Clara Planet, head of Design and UX/UI at Pasiona. “When things are already done, it is much more expensive to make changes”, so it is essential “never forget the user, who is the person who finally has to use the product”, he says, to remember that “placing the user at the center begins in the design phase”.

These are some of the principles on which the contents of the Guide of Recommendations for the development of health and social care apps, published by the Fundació TicSalut, are based. The document aims to be a manual to guarantee secure, accessible, usable and interoperable mobile applications according to the criteria set by the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Our Design team, headed by Clara Planet, has been in charge of the contents of the guide in the Design and Usability sections.

Aimed at those who are entering the development of applications in the mHealth environment, it addresses points such as security, accessibility, application markets or development languages, among other aspects to be addressed jointly. And, when developing a health or social care app, it is essential to have “multidisciplinary teams where all the actors involved participate” in order to “reduce the margin of error and the final cost” of the project, says Clara Planet.

The Generalitat entrusts Pasiona with the technological and usability accreditation of the apps

The guide was linked to the accreditation system for health and social welfare applications established by the TicSalut Foundation. A system that is based on four pillars: usability and design, content, security and technology and that validates the quality of the applications collected in the AppSalut portal. To carry out this accreditation, the Generalitat has relied on the professionalism and experience of the Pasiona team for validation in terms of technology criteria and Design / Usability.

It is from this joint work that the collaboration is born to take care of the Design and Usability section of the first edition of the Guide of basic recommendations for the development of health and social care apps. It also has the participation of CSV Experts, iSalus, m4social and the Taula del Tercer Sector. It was officially presented on December 14 in the auditorium of the Department of Health (Barcelona), with a full capacity of the public and with the intervention, among others, of our colleague Clara Planet, who put on the table some of the keys on Usability included in the guide.