Designing an Application for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Patients with Depression Disorder Through a User-Centered Design Approach

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Master's Student, Visual Communication Department, Faculty of Arts, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Industrial Design Department, Faculty of Applied Arts, Iran University of Art, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Depressive disorder is one of the common problems in public mental health, which leads to adverse consequences in the personal and social aspects of people's lives. The application of cognitive-behavioral therapy through mobile health-oriented applications is an important and effective intervention in the treatment of depression; But the design of this type of applications is often not based on scientific methods and user studies, and users often face many problems in using them. The main research question is: How can the usability of cognitive behavioral therapy applications be improved for patients with depressive disorder? Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the specific needs of patients with depressive disorder in interaction with the related cognitive-behavioral therapy application and to optimize its usability in order to facilitate the treatment process. The collection of information in this applied research was done through library and field studies, and according to the implementation method, it is based on the user-centered design process. After planning the user-centered design process and specifying the conditions and context of using the application, the requirements of the users of this application were identified with interview and questionnaires, and practical guidelines for designing the user interface were determined. Then, with the use of user-centered design process tools, the user interface level of the application was designed and prototyped and made available to the representatives of the personas for evaluation, and the problems of the application were identified and corrected. The findings of this research showed that considering the specific needs of patients with depression in the design of an application related to cognitive-behavioral therapy and making treatment resources available for these people will increase its usability. Also, user-centered design will improve the communication and interaction of users and facilitate the treatment process and reduce user errors.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 27 November 2024
  • Revise Date: 19 January 2025
  • Accept Date: 25 January 2025

Share

How to cite

Statistics