Paper Number

1209

Abstract

The use of mobile health (mHealth) applications to easily track calorie intake and exercise behavior becomes more and more popular. However, research showed that mHealth apps could only be effective in supporting people in their weight loss if used regularly over a long period. Despite a significant amount of work examining the decision to continue to use mHealth apps, less is known about sources of negative user experiences that can act as barriers to long-term use. Drawing upon affordance theory, this study aims to fill this research gap by qualitatively analyzing app reviews from five popular weight loss apps. Our findings reveal nine causes of dissatisfaction that can have adverse effects regarding long-term mHealth app use for weight management. The results contribute to research and practice by shedding light on the barriers to the continued use of mHealth applications for weight management and how designers and developers can overcome these shortcomings.

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