A Preliminary Czech Version of mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (CZpre-MAUQ): Results from the First Translation Iteration and a Comparison with UEQ

Mobile health (mHealth) apps play a pivotal role in enhancing healthcare by making it more accessible, personalized, and participatory across diverse populations. While generic usability questionnaires can be used to evaluate such apps from a user-centered perspective, instruments specifically tailored to the unique context of mHealth may yield richer and more valid insights. The mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) was developed with this aim in mind. Although the MAUQ has been made available in several languages, a Czech version had not been available to date. Therefore, the aim of our study was to prepare a Czech translation and conduct a pre-test with a small, homogenous sample of university students (N = 39) evaluating the Fitbit app. As a comparator, we employed the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ), which emphasizes affective or hedonic aspects of usability. Overall, our findings demonstrate an adequate level of internal consistency across the MAUQ subscales. In addition, open-ended responses from participants were analyzed, revealing differing user perceptions regarding the focus of the two instruments. Despite limitations due to the small sample size, our study offers an important initial insight into the psychometric properties of the Czech MAUQ (CZpre-MAUQ) and highlights how usability perceptions can differ depending on the evaluation framework employed.