Graphical user interface design to improve understanding of the patient-reported outcome symptom response

Mangyeong Lee; Danbee Kang; Yeongrae Joi; Junghee Yoon; Youngha Kim; Jinhwang Kim; Minwoong Kang; Dongryul Oh; Soo-Yong Shin; Juhee Cho

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278465

Graphical user interface design to improve understanding of the patient-reported outcome symptom response

PLoS One. 2023 Jan 24;18(1):e0278465. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278465. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mangyeong Lee^{1

2}, Danbee Kang^{1

3}, Yeongrae Joi¹, Junghee Yoon³, Youngha Kim¹, Jinhwang Kim¹, Minwoong Kang², Dongryul Oh⁴, Soo-Yong Shin², Juhee Cho^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Clinical Epidemiology, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.
² Department of Digital Health, SAIHST, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea.
³ Department of Clinical Research Design and Evaluation, SAIHST, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea.
⁴ Department of Radiation Oncology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Abstract

Background: Symptom monitoring application (SMA) has clinical benefits to cancer patients but patients experience difficulties in using it. Few studies have identified which types of graphical user interface (GUI) are preferred by cancer patients for using the SMA.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study aimed to identify preferred GUI among cancer patients to use SMA. Total of 199 patients were asked to evaluate 8 types of GUIs combining text, icon, illustration, and colors using mixed-methods. Subgroup analyses were performed according to age and gender.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 57 and 42.5% was male. The most preferred GUI was "Text + Icon + Color" (mean = 4.43), followed by "Text + Icon" (mean = 4.39). Older patients (≥ 60 years) preferred "Text + Icon" than younger patients (p for interaction < 0.01). Simple and intuitive text and icons were the most useful GUI for cancer patients to use the SMA.

Conclusion: Simple and intuitive text and icons were the most useful GUI for cancer patients to use the SMA. Researchers need to be careful when applying realistic face drawings to cancer symptom monitoring applications because they can recall negative images of cancer.

Copyright: © 2023 Lee et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Male
Mental Recall
Neoplasms*
Patient Reported Outcome Measures
User-Computer Interface*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea to DO [No. 2017R1A2B4007720] and to JC [2021R1A2C2011083], and by Samsung Medical Center in the form of a grant to JC [No. SMX1210381]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.