Pregnant Users' Perceptions of the Birth Plan Interface in the "My Prenatal Care" App: Observational Validation Study.

Background: Birth plans are meant to be a declaration of the expectations and preferences of pregnant woman regarding childbirth. The My Prenatal Care app engages pregnant women in an educational intervention for a healthy pregnancy. We hypothesized that users' positive perception of an in-app birth plan is a relevant step for establishing direct communication between pregnant women and the health care team, based on an online report available on the app.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate pregnant women's perception about the communicability of birth-plan preparation using a mobile app.

Methods: This was an observational, exploratory, descriptive study. The methodology was user centered, and both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. The tools of the communicability evaluation method were applied. Overall, 11 pregnant women evaluated their experience of using a birth-plan prototype interface. The evaluation was performed in a controlled environment, with authorized video recording. There were 8 task-oriented interactions proposed to evaluate interface communicability with users when using the Birth Plan menu. For evaluating perceptions and experiences, a survey with structured and open-ended questions in addition to the free expression of participants was conducted. The primary outcomes assessed were interface communicability and user's perception of the Birth Plan prototype interface in the My Prenatal Care mobile app. Secondarily, we involved users in the prototyping phase of the interface to identify bottlenecks for making improvements in the app.

Results: Regarding users' performance in accomplishing previously prepared tasks, we found that 10 of 11 (91%) women were capable of completing at least 6 of 8 (75%) tasks. A positive relationship was found between the number of communicability problems and the success of completing the tasks. An analysis of the records revealed three communicability breakdowns related to the data entry, save, and scrollbar functions. The participants freely expressed suggestions for improvements such as for the save function and the process of sharing the birth-plan form upon completion.

Conclusions: Users had a positive perception of the Birth Plan menu of the My Prenatal Care app. This user-centered validation enabled the identification of solutions for problems, resulting in improvements in the app.