MATS - An ADHD-Specific Mental Health App: Evidence-Based Recommendations for Designing Assistive Applications for ADHD Families

We present recommendations for designing mobile assistive applications for children with ADHD and their families that we derived from testing our evidence-based designed MATS app. Ten families with an ADHD-diagnosed child tested the application in their everyday environment and described their experience in an audio diary. Analyzing the feedback, we found evidence for a significant heterogeneity of the target group resulting in different individual needs. Based on the data, we furthermore derived recommendations for design and pedagogical elements that an assistive application for ADHD families should include to embrace the unique needs of this target group. Our results highlight the importance of self-determination in motivating children and parents to engage in mental health interventions. In addition, to our knowledge, we have developed the first ADHD-specific application that involves children and parents equally, which seems to align with the needs of the families.