Human-Centered and Inclusive Design: The Role of HCI in Designing for Health Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Digital technologies hold the potential to make healthcare more accessible and personalized, but they also carry the risk of excluding the very populations who stand to benefit most. Without intentional, human-centered design, digital health tools can amplify existing disparities for underserved, vulnerable, aging, and specific populations. This Special Issue thus seeks to explore the role of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) factors in actively designing for health inclusivity. This includes a range of HCI contributions, from foundational co-design and accessibility research to the development of novel interactive systems that are usable, trustworthy, and empowering in healthcare.

In this Special Issue, we invite original research, review articles, and case studies in a broad set of topics, including but not limited to the following:

1. Community-Based and Participatory Design: Methodologies for co-designing health technologies with underserved, vulnerable, or older adult communities to ensure their needs and values are met.
2. Accessibility and Inclusive Design: Creating and evaluating digital health interfaces that are accessible to users with varying levels of literacy, physical ability, or cognitive function.
3. Human-in-the-Loop Collaborative Systems: Designing technology-mediated models that empower patient self-management while keeping healthcare providers, family caregivers, and community health workers effectively in the loop.
4. Designing for Low-Resource Environments: Developing effective health technologies for contexts with limited internet connectivity, older devices, or other infrastructure challenges.
5. Addressing Health Literacy: Strategies for presenting complex health information and instructions in a clear, understandable, and actionable manner.
6. Evaluation of Impact: Methodologies and studies focused on measuring the effectiveness of inclusively designed technologies in reducing health disparities and improving outcomes.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Ana Carolina Bertoletti De Marchi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• human–computer interaction (HCI)
• health equity
• underserved populations
• inclusive design
• aging population
• gerontechnology
• health literacy
• human-in-the-loop
• m-Health
• user experience in healthcare
• system evaluation in healthcare