UW Share DNA Mobile App

UX Research Project

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Project Goals:

OOur team conducted a usability study of the UW ShareDNA App to find and address critical usability issues and uncover feedback on the design, relevance, and content of the app, as well as the general experience of sharing DNA as it relates to using the App. We also gathered feedback from users about their feelings and attitudes toward privacy, comfort level sharing genetic results, and their general thoughts on whether they would use the ShareDNA App to share their genetic test results.

Our primary goal was to provide the UW ShareDNA team consisting of a Licensed Genetic Counselor, a Medical Education Professor, and a Biomedical Informatics Scientist with high-quality usability research data, empowering them to make effective design decisions to improve the usability of their product. Because ShareDNA was under active development and had not been usability tested, we discovered many findings and recommendations for the ShareDNA group to address in product updates.

The four goals of this study are to provide feedback on the following: 

1. Is it visually appealing, easy to navigate, and easy to understand?

2. Is it something that would be useful? How often would participants share genetic test results via the app? Would they recommend it to others?

3. Should additional information be included and should there be more ways to use this data? 

4. Do participants have any concerns about the app? What was their overall impressions?

Methodology:

We recruited a total of six participants; two females from the UW Next Medicine Study’s (Next Medicine) Internal Review Board (IRB Cohort) and four men from our general population survey (Genpop Cohort), all representing moderate to high levels of smartphone experience with similar levels of experience downloading and using apps on their smartphones. All of our participants had considered genetic testing. The participants from the IRB Cohort had moderate to high levels of experience with genetic testing while the participants from the Genpop Cohorts experience was low to moderate.

Each member of our team performed heuristic evaluations of the ShareDNA App to familiarize ourselves with the product and identify key areas in which to focus our usability study. While the Next Medicine team directed our group to focus on the apps design, its relevance, content, and the overall experience of using the app.

Thus, we developed a general population survey, pre- and post-study questionnaires, and defined three areas of evaluation: Downloading, Sharing via email, Sharing via Text, as well as overall device/app interactions and discussing privacy concerns. We created a set of key tasks and success criteria for each area. We then conducted the usability study with 6 participants; each was video recorded answering a pre-questionnaire about their current app usage; they were then asked to perform key tasks while thinking out loud to share their expectations, thought process, and reactions; finally they answered questions in a post-study survey and interview about their experiences with ShareDNA and thoughts on privacy.

Findings:

Only 16% said that they were likely to use a mobile app to share DNA results. With 40% who said that they would share their DNA results with 2-4 people. Most of our respondents would share their results with their Parent or Siblings, with the highest percentage expressing that they would share with their partners.

While they found ShareDNA visually appealing, most of our respondents wanted links to online resources for genetic conditions or basic info telling them what a gene is and how genetic conditions are passed on instead of a sharing app. 

A total of 60% of our respondents indicated that they would not want to share ‘all’ of their genetic results using a mobile app with privacy as one of their main concerns. They, however, did not seem to find any issues with having to share this information in situ — while using the ShareDNA App.

App functionality
1. Intro Screens didn’t seem like an option. There were several screens that introduced you to how to use the app. When returning back to the app this did not seem like an option.

2. Create User Account intro screen caused some confusion. Users did not know if this was a choice, button, or informational screen.

3. Users did not know if their email was actually sent.

4. There was concern about whether there would be an ability to send parts of their test results to specific people instead of the entire test results.

5. Choose File button caused some confusion on the Register for ShareDNA screen.

6. Passphrase request created confusion.

7. List of relationships did not appear directly below “choose relation” bar when you click the drop down arrow. (Currently when clicking on the down arrow the list appears at the bottom of the screen.)

Recommendations:

Share more information: We recommended providing more context and information on why and which cases it would be important to share DNA results along with basic information telling what a gene is and how genetic conditions are passed on.

More security: We recommended providing more security and authentication methods to instill in users that the app is a trusted one.

App Functionality Recommendations
1. Create a clear option for users on first screen such as “Get Started” or “How to use this App” allowing them to choose whether they are going start using the App or walk through a tutorial.

2. Make Create User Account look less like a button. A pointing finger on top of the button may denote that it is an instruction versus a button.

3. A confirmation text box stating their email has been sent to the following recipients will help clear up confusion after clicking ‘Send Email’. Alternately: a preview of the message to be sent with a final “Send” button could be presented.

4. We recommended giving the user the ability to customize the result they wish to share.

5. Have a separate screen for loading and/or accessing Results to share. Then have a Choose Results button after you’ve selected who you’re sharing the results with.

6. Change “passphrase” to “password”.

7. We recommended removing the arrow icon all together so that users will not look for a list directly below the arrow. Removing the down arrow will make the 'Choose Relation' bar a button. Pressing a button means users are more likely to pay attention to the list appearing at the bottom of the phone screen.

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Documents created:
Interaction Map
Preliminary Proposal
Screener and Survey Questions
Survey
Usability Study Plan
Usability Study Kit
Post Study Questionnaire
Full Project Report
Final presentation