Usability Considerations for Enhancing Exercise-Based Injury Prevention Interventions

Our study centers around the importance of usability and usability testing in the context of exercise interventions. Despite the proven effectiveness of exercise programs in reducing injuries, adherence to these programs remains a challenge, and injury rates have not decreased significantly. This study explores the application of usability testing in the field of health and exercise medicine, specifically assessing the usability of an exercise-based injury prevention intervention. A team of female handball players was included in the study (n = 23). The study employed a modified usability questionnaire, including items from the System Usability Scale (SUS), to evaluate important program characteristics (e.g. learnability, enjoyability, perceived effectiveness, ease of use, and efficiency). The Likert scale-based questionnaire was distributed within two sessions into the intervention period and post intervention. Perceived effectiveness, enjoyability, and efficiency highly correlated with players’ intention to use the program (rs 0.50, p = 0.02, rs 0.50, p= 0.02, rs 0.65, p < 0.001, respectively), whereas learnability and ease of use did not. Hence, the SUS items were not correlated with intention to use the program. Program usability, especially enjoyability, significantly decreased over time (Cohen’s d = 0.60, 95 % CI 0.13, 1.06, p = 0.01, and Cohen’s d = 0.61, 95 % CI 0.18, 1.10, p = 0.01, respectively). Our findings underscore the potential significance of considering program characteristics and usability testing throughout the development and testing of exercise programs. Moreover, this study highlights the shortcomings of current scales such as SUS and advocates for the creation of a tailored usability assessment tool for exercise interventions.