Using social media to support requirements gathering when users are not available

The use of mobile health applications has surged in numbers since the advent of smart phones a decade ago. Yet, many mobile applications suffer from low engagement due to poor application design. This could be partially due to the primary users of an eHealth applications being time poor and inaccessible to software developers due to their complex health needs. This study investigated the needs of a complex cohort to establish how an eHealth application could provide support. This investigation used social media to reach the cohort ‘where they were’, without needing to undertake traditional software requirement extraction. The study demonstrated that social media can be used as an effective research tool, not only as a data collection tool to gain insight for a possible mobile application prototype development, but it has demonstrated that social media is a feasible participation tool of User Centred Design (UCD) engagement.