User-Centered Design of a Mobile App to Support Peer Recovery in a Clinical Setting

The use of legal and illegal drugs has grown to such an acute level that it now represents a public health crisis in the United States. To support clinical treatments of substance use disorders (SUDs), formal non-clinical peer recovery support programs pairing coaches with people new to recovery are gaining in popularity. Using a user-centered design approach, we designed a mobile application to support the peer coach recovery program of a health system. The application addresses the needs associated with the coaches' workflows, encompasses social supports for recoverees, and provides a space for fostering the coach-recoveree relationship. Finally, we then evaluated a prototype with recoverees and program coaches. Through this process, we identified tensions between stakeholder needs and translated these tensions into design features and future design considerations.