Using a Human-Centered Design Process to Evaluate and Optimize User Experience of a Website (InPACT at Home) to Promote Youth Physical Activity: Case Study.

Background: Web-based physical activity interventions often fail to reach the anticipated public health impact due to insufficient use by the intended audiences.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to use a human-centered design process to optimize the user experience of the Interrupting Prolonged sitting with ACTivity (InPACT) at Home website to promote youth physical activity participation.

Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted to assess engagement and pain points with the InPACT at Home website. Interview data were used to create affinity maps to identify themes of user responses, conduct a heuristic evaluation according to Nielsen's usability heuristics framework, and complete a competitive analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors who offered similar products.

Results: Key themes from end user interviews included liking the website design, finding the website difficult to navigate, and wanting additional features (eg, library of watched videos). The website usability issues identified were lack of labeling and categorization of exercise videos, hidden necessary actions and options hindering users from decision-making, error-prone conditions, and high cognitive load of the website. Competitive analysis results revealed that YouTube received the highest usability ratings followed by the Just Dance and Presidential Youth Fitness Program websites.

Conclusions: Human-centered design approaches are useful for bringing end users and developers together to optimize user experience and impact public health. Future research is needed to examine the effectiveness of the InPACT at Home website redesign to attract new users and retain current users, with the end goal of increasing youth physical activity engagement.