Adopting Smart-Health Care Applications for a Rural Community: A Comparison Between Affective and Anthropomorphic Design Principles

The extant literature indicates a marked suboptimal adoption of mobile health (m-Health) applications, particularly in rural communal settings. This underutilization could be attributed to a plethora of factors including, but not limited to, technological illiteracy, educational constraints, and the existential angst associated with novel technological interfaces. Despite these challenges and depending on the envisioned outcomes or objectives that the artefact was developed with, m-Health interventions possess the potential to significantly improve the quality of life for rural inhabitants. The research presented herein postulates that the principles of design, specifically affective and anthropomorphic design paradigms, can influence the adoption rates of such health technologies to a notable degree. The overarching research question interrogates the efficacy of affective and anthropomorphic design principles in facilitating a more favorable, even subconscious, emotional response from users, thereby enhancing the adoption rates of such interventions. To empirically investigate this query, a mixed-method research design was employed within the Sethakeng rural community in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Participants, representing a broad spectrum of age demographics, were enlisted following approval from the pertinent community leadership structures. These participants were subsequently engaged with a series of inquiries focusing on foundational emotional states, such as enjoyment, engagement, satisfaction and trust, as elicited by anthropomorphic and affective design principles. The resultant data illustrate a proclivity for anthropomorphic design across multiple age cohorts, albeit with nuanced exceptions within certain age brackets. These findings have been utilized to formulate an array of pragmatic guidelines and recommendations conducive to the development of m-Health applications specifically tailored for rural communities in alignment of the respective 3rd and 10th goals of the 13 Sustainability Goals for 2030, outlined by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Sustainable Development of the United Nations.