Key Components of Participatory Design Workshops for Digital Health Solutions: Nominal Group Technique and Feasibility Study

Participatory design (PD) is an essential method in the development of digital health solutions since it promises to increase acceptance, usability, and trust in the developed solution. Although careful planning and preparation is crucial for the success of PD workshops, a framework of key components to consider is still missing. The objective of this work is to develop such framework enriched with examples for aspects to be considered when planning and conducting PD workshops for designing and developing digital interventions in healthcare. We applied the nominal group technique with four participants with backgrounds in computer science, health informatics, psychology, and social anthropology to identify key components of PD workshops. The resulting framework was applied by an expert in PD to a case of a digital health solution for fatigue self-management for multiple sclerosis. The feasibility and applicability of the framework and its shortcomings were assessed. As a result, a framework consisting of five main categories and a total of 36 factors were assigned and defined in relation to the categories. The categories are participatory process, involved persons and their roles, workshop definition, setting, privacy and ethics, including regulations. The application of the framework to the test case demonstrated the feasibility and applicability of the suggested framework as well as the shortcomings of the analyzed PD process. This framework provides practical guidance while highlighting the complexity of PD workshops, encouraging their broad adoption, critical reflection, and continuous refinement. It has potential to improve the conduct of PD workshops and, in this way, potential to improve usability, acceptance, and usefulness of digital health solutions. In future work, the user perspective could be used to extend the framework.