Table 3.

Adolescents’ preferred app features

Feature: Obtain nutritional and physical activity information (tracking calories, taking picture of barcodes of foods, recommendations for new meals or exercise)

“I like how it’s telling you the calories you got in and then like what it’s got in it and stuff. So if it’s got something wrong in there, you can change it.” “Most helpful, it gives you recipes and stuff like that, healthier recipes. It tells me how many calories I burned … And you can go to the community and see what other people are going to better themselves.” “I love just watching it ‘cause it tells me how many steps I do and I like seeing how many steps I do a day and the calories you burn it shows and your heart rate… . I like it.” “Like, the exercises they gave me, some of them I haven’t heard about and it would be fun trying new exercises because you never know how good it can make you feel and the way you work out. It’ll probably get you slimmer in no time!” “It tells you everything. A doctor can only tell you certain stuff and when you go on the app, they’re going to tell you a whole bunch of other stuff, including the stuff the doctor told you.”

Feature: Notifications for exercise and healthy eating (reminders, tips)

“It would be helpful by giving me, like, tips and reminders and showing me notifications to make sure that I make sure I get in my work and my exercise.” “I like the reminder. Like, ‘remember to jog 10 minutes today ‘cause you have soccer practice tomorrow.’ Or, ‘Remember to do some kind of stretch before you go jogging today ‘cause yesterday you hurt your calf muscle.’” “I like how organized it is because I’m OCD real bad. I like to have reminders.”

Feature: Social connection (success stories, showing family, friends, and provider your progress in reaching healthy goals, competing against friends)

“I would feel good about it because it will push me even harder to go above them and to come out victorious.” “… And if you heard success stories, it would help you get motivated to lose weight just like they did.” “Yeah, because it kind of motivates me when people that I know see what I’m doing ‘cause it kind of makes me feel like, if they support me, then I can do it.” “I think I would like that because a lot of people, they get motivated by competition and they wanna win. So, it’ll give you more motivation to get out there.” “Well, for one, you can actually talk to people and get advice from other people that are trying to lose weight like you… .” “I’d do that [sharing progress with family], ‘cause my dad’s trying to lose weight too and all of us are mainly trying to get healthy.” “I would keep logging on to help myself get motivated … And also to share my improvements on my weight loss.” “Yeah, it would be, like, “They do this, and so I should try that because it’s working for them, so maybe it might work for me’.” “It would be a motive to do better ‘cause if your doctor’s watching, then they can see what you’re doing and you want to impress them.”

apps, applications.