May 2020

Cognifit is intended to make a pre-assessment of a specialist  and  help take care of the cognitive health of healthy users and stimulate or rehabilitate  brain function in people who suffer from some cognitive impairment, such as dementia, Alzheimer's, memory problems, insomnia, etc.... In addition, this app automatically adapts to the cognitive needs of each user whether they are children, adults, or the elderly.

Features

The app has 5 features or main features: Train, Evaluate, Progress, Play and Account. All of them are accessible from a small horizontal menu at the bottom of the screen.

- Train. This section makes available to the user up to a total of 20 trainings related to a specific topic, such as a training for concentration, for mental calculation, for depression, etc. Each session of these workouts consists of two games and an evaluation task. To access all these workouts, it is necessary to pay for one of the subscriptions mentioned above.

- Evaluate. This section provides up to 10 evaluation methods related to different forms of cognitive impairment, such as dyscalculia, dyslexia, Parkinson’s. These evaluation methods are intended to obtain a detailed measurement of the user's cognitive abilities and calculate a risk index for the most common mental disorders. To access all evaluations, it is necessary to pay one of the subscriptions mentioned above, with the exception of the general cognitive evaluation which can be accessed for free.

- Progress. This section shows the user's progress using a graph that contains the scores that have been obtained in the training sessions, this graph only shows the data after performing any of the evaluations in the "Assess" section. In addition, this section provides a personalized brain training for free that can be performed once a day and consists of three of the four games that the app makes available to the user for free.

- Play. Within this section you can find a total of 28 games, which are the ones that the application itself uses to do the workouts and evaluations. Of these 28 games only four are available for free: Wordbreaker, Sweet Memory, Hit the Mole and Mahjong.

- Account. This section allows the user to view and edit their profile, change their password, contact the developers to report any bugs and consult the terms of use and privacy policies.

Tests performed

In order to analyze and be able to carry out an evaluation of the application, a series of tests have been carried out to verify its operation. Testing has been performed on a Samsung Galaxy J7 device (Android 9 Pie) with version 4.0.16 and an iPhone 6S (IOS 13.4.1) with version 4.0.16

Functionality tests

To be able to use the application on both devices it has been necessary to install it through the respective application stores of each operating system.

Once the application is installed, at the time it starts, it is indicated that it is necessary to register with an email in order to start using it; you can use any email or sign in with a Google or Facebook account. After selecting the account to use the application will ask for a date of birth to be entered and then asked to enter the gender. While this data is being entered a message with the following content is displayed "When registering, you agree to the following Terms of Use and Privacy Policies" highlighting the conditions and policies for the user to consult. From this moment, after entering the data, the user will have access to all the free contents of the application.

Older people who will be using the app without paying for the subscription will only be able to use the "Play" section where they will have access to the first four games. Below will display an image of how to get into this section:

Usability tests

In this section we will measure the ease with which the user can use the application to achieve a specific goal, in this case is that an older person can exercise their brain quickly.

The application is very easy to use, it has a simple and friendly interface, it consists of a menu at the bottom with five  buttons very simple to recognize, either by its icon or its description, so the older people who want to use the application will have no difficulty understanding how the app works.

All this makes it very difficult for the user to start using the app, as it works in a very similar way to an application that has a list of games. The ease of remembering how it works is also very high, considering that, broadly speaking, you are talking about an application that whose main content is a list of games.

As for its effectiveness, it must be said that the app  is extremely effective since, it manages to reach the desired objective as soon as you start the application, also taking into account that, as mentioned above, does not require a great effort to learn how to use it you can say that the product has a high efficiency in terms of achieving the goal.

About portability, Cognifit works on any type of Smartphone, be it Android or iOS, plus it also works from its website.

Considering the analysis of each of the above criteria it can be said that the product has a considerably good usability in terms of achieving the objective taking into account the use that the elderly will give it.

Accessibility tests

In this section, different criteria will be applied to assess whether the application can be used regardless of the capabilities of the user.

Cognitive Accessibility – As for images and icons all of them have a description that facilitates their understanding and, in addition, they are a reasonable size so that they can be correctly identified.

Accessibility for people with reduced vision – The app does not have a settings section where you can change the theme, i.e. change the white background with black letters to black background with white letters. The font size cannot be changed so depending on the dimensions of the screen that the device being used has it is possible that certain words,  especially those that accompany the menu icons, may be difficult to read, although it is possible to increase the font size in the overall settings of the device, causing it to increase in the app in turn..  To complete this accessibility section, it has been decided to do some tests with the screen reader systems available from Android and IOS devices. These tests have focused on checking the correct labeling of the icons and buttons available to Cognifit. On all devices where the screen reader has been used all buttons  and tags are identified so that screen readers pronounce the words with an English accent, i.e. the labels and buttons are assigned the English language, even if the application is translated into Spanish.

Accessibility for people with hearing impairments – People with hearing impairments can use the app without any problem as it does not emit any alert sound.

Reliability tests

In this section we will study whether the application has a correct functioning and has no critical flaws harm to the functions of the app.

In the days that the application has been testing has not presented any outstanding or critical failures in its operation.

Privacy and security

In terms of privacy and security it is possible to access its terms and policies from the links provided by the Google Play and App Store download stores, although it is also possible to access them from within the application through the "Account" section.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, the application works properly, there has been no failure that has impaired its operation. This app can greatly contribute to older people staying cognitively active talking.

One of the positive points of the application is that, within a large market survey that has been carried out, it is one of the most complete that can be found, since it treats up to 20 forms of cognitive decline, helping the user to identify if they are at risk of suffering it or try to minimize the impact of it if they already have it. Another point to highlight is that you do not need an internet connection to be able to use it, so you do not need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network or mobile data.

One of the points to improve  the  application is that it falls a little short in terms of its free functions,  limiting itself only to providing four games of 28 possible and a general cognitive evaluation test that can only be performed once, to be able to perform it unlimitedly it is necessary to hire the subscription.  

Highlights

• It can be used without an internet connection.
• It is one of the most complete applications on the market.
• Images and icons have a description that helps your understanding.
• Explanatory icons are the right size to facilitate viewing and understanding.

Improvement points

• It would be interesting if the font size could be changed from within the app,
• It would be interesting to add an option to change the contrast of the letter with the background of the screen.
• You could consider fixing the language problem with screen readers