Previous research has indicated that gender is an important demographic to consider when
designing effective and tailored technology interventions. Despite this need, gender differences is
still an understudied topic in the field of technology interventions. The objective of this study was
to study gender differences in usage and user experience of a mental wellness app called Oiva.
Gender differences in the app’s effect on the participants’ mental well-being were also investigated.
Oiva is a stand-alone mental wellness app that aims to increase its users’ psychological flexibility
by teaching Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based skills.
The study population of the current study was a subset of the study population of Salwe’s Mind
and Body Programme. Matched pairs design was used to study gender differences in usage and user
experience of the Oiva App during a two-month mobile intervention. The study population (N = 20)
consisted of 10 men (age range 33 – 55, mean 4
4.56, SD 7.11) and 10 women (age range 34 – 54,
mean 44.43, SD 6.81). Each pair was matched on age and education, the distinguishing factor being
gender. The main variables were an online questionnaire assessing usage and user experience of the
Oiva App and mental wellness measurements using psychological questionnaires (PSS, RAND-36
emotional well-being, FFMQ and AAQ-II; pre = week 0, post = week 10, follow-up = week 36). In
addition, objective technology usage data from the log files generated by the mobile application was
investigated.
The results indicate that men and women used and experienced the Oiva App and its
functionalities in a similar way. There was no statistically significant gender difference in the usage
data from the log files or in the online questionnaire answers regarding usage and user experience
of the Oiva App. The results also suggest that the intervention had a positive effect on the
participants’ mental well-being and that the effect was similar for men and women. There was a
statistically significant change from pre to post intervention in PSS (psychological distress) and
RAND-36 (emotional well-being) and between post and follow-up measurements in AAQ-II (psychological flexibility) but this change did not differ statistically significantly across gender.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first study to investigate gender differences in usage and
user experience of a mobile mental wellness app. The results of the current study indicate that the
design of the Oiva App is sufficiently gender-sensitive, as there was no gender difference in usage
and user experience of the app, and the effect on mental well-being was similar across gender.
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