Mobile Apps for Foot Measurement in Pedorthic Practice : Scoping Review
claimed by the developer . Subjective Quality
An app ’ s subjective quality refers to its users ’ key views on the app . These can include personal app ratings , good and bad comments about the app , preference to pay for an app based on its features , and preference to recommend and use an app based on its relevance to the user . Often , users can deduce what an app offers by perusing the reviews from previous users . However , this is subjective , since the general distributed value of app comments and ratings saturate toward an approximated value only as the number of reviews on an app becomes large ; thus , this approach to measuring the performance of an app predownload is not effective for apps with few or no user ratings / comments in the app store . However , users often make comparatively in-depth comments on apps with key points that are helpful during the app review phase , which is an optional but valid criterion for apps retaining the saturated direction from user reviews and comments .
We adopted a similar approach for the subjective quality assessment . The app raters answered questions about the degree of satisfaction of use , potential frequency of use in the future , overall app rating , and how likely they were to pay for the apps .
Perceived Impact of App on Users
When an app is downloaded by users , its impact becomes a notable indication of the potential usefulness of the app . Technological developments and ongoing breakthroughs in the fields of computer science and machines have helped thousands of users by guiding their health and preventing death , with a large number of apps designed to improve user health [ 35 ] . The main objectives of mHealth apps are to induce awareness about a particular health problem , and increase the user ’ s motivation to avoid and prevent future occurrences related to health . Additionally , mHealth apps may provide intervention techniques and advice useful in decreasing the user ’ s negligence toward their health and increasing help-seeking behaviors targeting solutions to health problems . However , Milne-Ives et al [ 36 ] found that most healthoriented apps yield little to no evidence of effectiveness in cases of patient health outcomes and health behavioral changes .
To conclusively support foot measurement apps as useful tools for changing the outcomes of foot health and attention-based behavior , the effectiveness of these apps must be evaluated by app users [ 36 ] . Toward this end , the following example strategy was used for assessing the utility of user comments for the rating of apps . The user comments were divided into two types based on the user ’ s review rating of the app : the comment was considered “ good ” if the rating was 4 stars or above , and otherwise was considered “ bad .” For iOS apps , the number of downloads could not be viewed publicly and was thus excluded from influencing the assessment of apps with these criteria .
Understanding the impact of an app on users is not directly quantifiable . Therefore , in addition to the approach above , the following strategies were used to assess the extent to which an app was able to make an impact on its users based on their reviews and ratings : ( 1 ) how streamlined the app ’ s measurement process was , ( 2 ) the reaction of users about certain aspects of the app ( store reviews ), ( 3 ) whether the app had any outstanding features that appealed to the public regarding foot health and foot problems , and
24 Pedorthic Footcare Association | www . pedorthics . org