Lessons Learned from Co-Designing a Digital Health App for Foster Youth: Development and Usability Study
Engaging in participatory co-design of BITs with foster youth and other minoritized communities requires careful attention to power dynamics. Creating a space where co-designers feel there is mutual benefit to engaging in the process and it is psychologically safe to share their experiences is crucial for success. We describe lessons learned from engaging in this co-design work, including how it relates to decisions about the technology (eg, balancing youth privacy with the burden of the login process), working with third-party developers (eg, ensuring technology development partners have sufficient knowledge about the population you are co-designing with to meaningfully engage with them), and considerations for the strategic embedding of technology-based interventions within existing systems of care to promote uptake.
Authors
- Ifunanya Ezimora (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7292-3742)
- Marina Tolou‐Shams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2551-609X)
- Alison Czopp (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0956-6179)
- Johanna B. Folk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0503-7307)
- Lisa R. Fortuna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5336-4970)
- Juan Carlos González (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6519-311X)
- Margareth V Del Cid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2671-7010)
- Elizabeth A. McBride (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2611-2410)
- Tylia Lundberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0857-5888)
Institutions
- University of California, Riverside (US)
- University of San Diego (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- San Diego State University (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- University of San Francisco (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- JMIR Formative Research
- Published
- 2025-12-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2196/73281
- Primary Topic
- Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00