User Experience of Symptom Checkers: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This review reports the user experience of symptom checkers, aiming to characterize users studied in the existingliterature, identify the aspects of user experience of symptom checkers that have been studied, and offer designsuggestions. Our literature search resulted in 31 publications. We found that (1) most symptom checker users arerelatively young; (2) eight relevant aspects of user experience have been explored, including motivation, trust,acceptability, satisfaction, accuracy, usability, safety/security, and functionality; (3) future symptom checkers shouldimprove their accuracy, safety, and usability. Although many facets of user experience have been explored,methodological challenges exist and some important aspects of user experience remain understudied. Furtherresearch should be conducted to explore users’ needs and the context of use. More qualitative and mixed-methodstudies are needed to understand actual users’ experiences in the future.