Designing a Scalable Digital Health Research Platform: Integrating User‑Centered Design, Agile Development, and Real‑World Implementation in HealthMpowerment NextGen (Preprint)

<sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> <p>Digital health interventions (DHIs) have demonstrated effectiveness across a wide range of health domains but often face challenges related to scalability, customization, implementation efficiency, and long-term sustainability. HealthMpowerment (HMP) is an evidence-based digital health platform that has been implemented across multiple research studies and intervention contexts. Through years of implementation, recurring challenges related to study team onboarding, content management, data analytics, and platform scalability highlighted the need for platform modernization.</p> </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> <p>This paper describes the process of modernizing HMP into HMP NextGen, a more scalable and configurable digital health research platform, through the integration of stakeholder feedback, user-centered design, real-world implementation experience, and agile software development practices. </p> </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> <p>Platform modernization followed a multi-phase, stakeholder-driven process. An initial needs assessment survey was conducted with investigators and research coordinators from prior HMP studies to identify platform strengths, challenges, and priorities for improvement. The HMP team partnered with a user experience and user interface design firm to conduct discovery research, workflow analyses, stakeholder interviews, prototyping, and iterative design activities. Design outputs were translated into platform functionality through agile software development processes. Ongoing refinement was informed by internal testing, expert advisory board reviews, and usability testing with Subject Matter Research Consultants.</p> </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> <p>Ten respondents completed the initial needs assessment. Survey findings identified content management, study team onboarding, and analytics as priority areas for platform improvement. These findings were translated into the design and development of HMP NextGen, including a Study Onboarding Portal, enhanced Content Management System, expanded analytics infrastructure, configurable study setup tools, participant management functionality, and supporting administrative workflows. Multiple rounds of stakeholder review informed ongoing refinements and helped ensure the platform aligned with real-world research workflows, operational needs, and user expectations.</p> </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> <p>HMP NextGen was developed through a continuous, feedback-driven process that integrated stakeholder engagement, user-centered design, agile software development, and real-world implementation experience. This work provides a practical framework for modernizing and scaling digital health research platforms to support diverse intervention and research needs. </p> </sec>