What Makes Inactive Users?:User stories as a pathway to user interface development in internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy

In the context of psychologist-supported and internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT), we address patients’ non-compliance,. We unfold user stories gathered throughout Denmark from thirteen home visits with patients receiving iCBT for anxiety and/or depression. The iCBT is carried out from an online platform with treatment modules, supported by a psychologist through an inbuilt text-message function (from now on, the program). The analysis combines ‘User experience’ (UX) with modes of ordering, to address multiple agencies throughout iCBT. We unfold three user stories focusing on what makes patients drop out, that is, stop their use of the program. We seek to explore and understand what happens in the homes, when patients undertake iCBT, and shed light on the ways iCBT is appropriated differently throughout three patient cases. The ambition is to understand what makes patients stop using the program, what makes non-compliance, and what makes patients inactive during iCBT. We want to understand more of what happens when UX meet user interfaces (UI), This is important to understand users reception, situation and priorities and not least how UI modules may be developed in terms of meeting the needs of service receivers. The contribution is a debate about how iCBT builds on our former and more traditional understanding of care of mental illness and that the possibilities are still not unleashed. We conclude that iCBT is received differently among service receivers. This feeds into a discussion about how to manage iCBT as both an innovative and an ethical practice.