Well-being ranking for apps (WRapp): flexible quality criteria for apps in well-being and health

There are more and more apps on the market that aim to increase well-being. Many of these apps are only used for short periods of time. Meanwhile, organisations remain committed to developing new apps that are often similar to already existing ones. There are several reasons for the short-term use of these apps:

• App developers are often unfamiliar with the concrete needs and expectations of clients and social workers, and with the specificity of welfare work.
• Lack of experience makes it difficult for clients and social workers to articulate concretely which quality criteria are important to them.
• External quality criteria (such as technical security criteria, etc.) to assess the quality of already existing apps are often less relevant to them.
• …

To meet the demand for guidance when looking for qualitative apps, this project will create a framework with understandable quality criteria for welfare apps that are relevant for (potential) clients and care providers within different target groups. This framework can be used for screening existing apps (e.g. during the development of appstores within welfare). Furthermore, it can also serve as an aid in the development of new apps.

On the other hand, welfare work is very broad and includes different target groups. We are aware that various sectors and various target groups attach varying degrees of importance to various criteria. Young people, for instance, often find it less important that an app compromises their privacy, while older generations are more suspicious of this. To take these differences into account, we speak of 'flexible quality criteria' for apps in welfare work.