We used a cross-sectional survey design to capture user perspectives on the Icanbewell web application from both health care providers and the general population. The study was conducted online in Canada from July 8, 2024, to August 7, 2025. We followed the CHERRIES (Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys) guidelines [21] for reporting online surveys (Multimedia Appendix 1).

The Institut du Savoir Montfort Research Ethics Board approved this study (24-25-06-012). Participants provided informed consent before completing the survey, and responses were anonymous. Participants were not compensated for participating.

Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants for this study. The research team distributed posters with QR codes about the free web application at various primary care clinics and community centers in Ottawa. The team also shared information through online newsletters and social media channels. Users additionally discovered the web application by word of mouth. The authors attempted to share news of the study informally with colleagues in other provinces.

Upon accessing the Icanbewell website and after clicking on a topic, all application users were invited to participate in a 2-minute survey (Multimedia Appendix 2) offered in either French or English through a pop-up message. Consent was obtained by reading the invitation to the survey, which specified the purpose of the survey and stated that responses would be completely anonymous. The web application was designed so that the analytics did not collect IP addresses from users. There was no possibility of linking survey responses back to users. There were no incentives provided for participation in the study.

The 9-item online survey on user satisfaction and demographics (Multimedia Appendix 3) was made available from July 8, 2024, to August 7, 2025, to collect responses from adult users aged ≥18 years. Age was not verified, as the web application relied on users self-identifying as adults aged ≥18 years.

To measure satisfaction, users were prompted to answer 1 Likert-scale question and were then given 1 open-text question in which they could elaborate on suggestions for improvement (Multimedia Appendix 3). Users were also asked a second open-text question about what they learned from using the app. We used these 2 brief open-text responses to allow efficient data collection across our sample.

Study data were collected and managed using REDCap (Vanderbilt University) electronic data capture tools hosted at the Institut du Savoir Montfort [22,23]. Survey respondents included members of the public and health care providers.

A total of 69 users responded to the Icanbewell survey between July 8, 2024, and August 7, 2025. Unforeseen technical errors occurred during the study period, causing inconsistencies in web application analytics tracking. Consequently, data on precise numbers of users who were exposed to the web application and survey throughout the study period were unavailable. Therefore, we cannot report a response rate. Multimedia Appendix 4 shows the web application analytics we were able to retrieve. Of the 69 respondents to the study survey, only 4 participants did not complete the survey in its entirety (ie, missed at least 1 sociodemographic question). All responses were retained for completed survey items.

Descriptive statistics of the study population are provided in Table 1. Most survey respondents were English-speaking (57/69, 83%), women (49/69, 71%), members of the public (55/69, 80%), aged >50 years (51/69, 74%), living in Ontario (41/69, 59%), and attached to a primary care provider (59/69, 86%).

A total of 55 (80%) respondents were satisfied with the app, 6 (9%) were dissatisfied, and 7 (10%) were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (Table 2). One user did not specify their level of satisfaction and was therefore removed from the analysis of satisfaction among groups.

Satisfaction was high and similar across subgroups (Table 3), ranging from 79.6% (43/54; 95% CI 67.1-88.2) among members of the public to 90.9% (10/11; 95% CI 62.3-98.4) among health care professionals, 78.9% among men (15/19; 95% CI 56.7-91.5) and 81% (39/48; 95% CI 68.1-89.8) among women, with near-identical estimates by language (English: 45/56, 80.4%, 95% CI 68.2-88.7; French: 8/10, 80%, 95% CI 49.0-94.3) and by attachment to a primary care provider (attached: 47/58, 81%, 95% CI 69.1-89.1; not attached: 8/10, 80%, 95% CI 49.0-94.3). The qualitative results revealed a diversity of responses to the 2 questions. The 2 main themes corresponded to the question prompts: suggestions for improvement and what users learned.

A total of 46 (67%) respondents provided suggestions to improve Icanbewell (Table 4). Three subthemes under this theme of improvement emerged from the analysis: (1) increasing access and optimizing the interface, (2) requests to add or modify the app’s medical content beyond prevention (ie, symptoms and treatment), and (3) general positive feedback on their user experience. Overall, users seemed to appreciate the “one-stop shop” concept of the web application as a way of keeping up to date with health information from multiple sources that are consolidated into 1 platform.

A total of 29 (42%) respondents indicated that they learned new information from using the Icanbewell web application (Table 5). Three subthemes emerged from this main theme. Users learned about: (1) Canadian prevention guideline specifics, (2) how to access various health resources, and (3) general medical information on health and symptoms.

Our study evaluated the user experience of the Icanbewell web application, a Canadian preventive DHI, using a cross-sectional survey design. This study comes at a pivotal time, as most Canadians want to prevent health problems before they occur [3]. Overall, the results of this initial evaluation of the Icanbewell application user experience demonstrate that respondents valued the application as a digital health information tool, with many engaging with the application’s preventive health content. Participants in the present study often reported learning when screening tests are appropriate according to Canadian guidelines. Importantly, our results suggest that users are interested in disease prevention information.

Most survey respondents (55/69, 80%) were satisfied with their experience using the Icanbewell app, with many highlighting the importance of having access through the application to a central repository of Canadian health guidelines created by Canadian health care providers and scientists. Moreover, 67% (46/69) of respondents provided suggestions to improve the application. One of the most frequent suggestions from respondents was to include additional medical content in the web application, beyond prevention. This desire for more information aligns with the outcomes of a recent Canadian Medical Association survey, which found that Canadians are increasingly searching online for medical information when they have difficulty accessing care in person [5]. Other important suggestions by survey respondents included improvements to the user interface of the web application, particularly in user navigation and content presentation.

User suggestions to add supplementary medical content highlight the challenges of presenting users with complete but not overwhelming health information, which can also be personalized for individual needs. Incorporating AI in future versions of the application may help improve the user experience in this regard. For example, AI could provide tailored answers to user questions and direct them to pertinent information within the app. This would lessen the “overwhelmed” feeling, which some participants reported. However, any use of AI in the Icanbewell web application would require frequent testing to ensure that the health information presented by the AI is sourced from credible, evidence-based resources and is free of misinformation or hallucinations [26].

Within the digital health literature, there are few studies evaluating general prevention apps such as Icanbewell. There is some research, however, focusing on evaluations of apps targeting the prevention of 1 specific condition. A Dutch qualitative study used focus groups to explore participants’ perceived barriers and facilitators to using a mobile health app on skin cancer screening. Interestingly, one of the main factors facilitating the use of mobile health among their participants was endorsement by health care providers and government regulatory bodies [27]. Similarly, a 2022 analysis of 267 COVID-19 apps found that government-developed apps were far more likely to be installed (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 8.16), rated, and commented on, although nongovernment apps received higher rating scores [28]. Implications of our work therefore include considering the integration of professional- and/or government-endorsed prevention-focused mobile health apps for the general Canadian population. Efforts to both create locally relevant, trustworthy, and accessible prevention information for the public and to support health care professionals in disseminating this evidence-based information are needed [29].

We acknowledge that our study had several limitations. Given the small convenience sample in our study, the results remain preliminary and exploratory. Our study’s self-selected sample was mostly made up of individuals who had a primary care provider and who were aged >50 years, which may not be representative of the general population that could benefit from the web application. Moreover, the Icanbewell web application may be more appealing to people who are already interested in health prevention, and therefore, those who responded to the survey may be people who are naturally more inclined to adopt healthy behaviors. Other studies of mobile health app users confirm this pattern in user characteristics, showing that most active users tend to: (1) come from high-income backgrounds with more years of education, (2) already rate their health highly, and (3) report healthy lifestyle behaviors at baseline [12,30,31]. We also recognize the underrepresentation of users who are unattached to health care providers, are younger, and are health care providers in our sample.

We also acknowledge that our choice of open-text questions to learn from users places some level of constraint on their ability to share their experiences. Specifically, this format did not allow follow-up probing and may have resulted in underspecified responses, potentially limiting the depth of themes identified in our inductive content analysis. Subsequent web application evaluations should prioritize obtaining richer knowledge from participants through semistructured interviews or focus groups on web application user experience, in which dialogue can be held.

Geographically, our study was led by a team based in Ottawa and disseminated primarily through Ottawa area clinical networks. Although we made efforts to extend recruitment to colleagues in other provinces and territories, a substantial proportion of respondents were from Ontario. Confirmation of results in a larger, more geographically diverse sample represents a priority for future work. Finally, due to an unforeseen technical error, the survey platform failed to track both the total number of users visiting the application web page and the number of incomplete, unsubmitted survey attempts. It was therefore impossible to calculate a standard response rate or a survey completion rate, which introduces an unknown risk of nonresponse and attrition bias.

Despite these limitations, several strategies were used to support the trustworthiness of our results in line with the criteria by Lincoln and Guba [24]. To support credibility and confirmability, 2 team members independently reviewed and discussed the survey data during analysis, allowing them to build consensus around emerging patterns. A third senior member then reviewed the data. For transferability, demographic characteristics of participants are reported (Table 1). In keeping with the exploratory, small sample nature of this study, no claims of broad generalizability are made. Dependability was achieved by maintaining consistent procedures for data review, interpretation, and documentation throughout the analysis.

Future avenues for this work should use representative sampling and focus on obtaining the perspectives of groups underrepresented in this study to allow a more comprehensive and generalizable analysis of the user experience. It would be especially important to study the experience of individuals who are unattached to a health care provider to determine if such a web application may fill gaps in their prevention information needs [32].

Beyond this particular study, further research is needed to address the challenges associated with the sustainability of DHIs. This includes studying the effectiveness of DHIs based on actual health outcomes, encouraging further patient and clinician participation in DHI design and use, and integrating and regulating these DHIs within the health care system [6,33]^. The present study serves as a reminder that creating an all-encompassing web application dedicated to prevention that can keep up with Canada’s multijurisdictional, complex, and rapidly changing health care landscape is challenging. Likewise, securing funding to continuously update the content of such a web application is also challenging. Most importantly, planning for end-user engagement throughout the application development and implementation processes should be prioritized to maximize the benefit of the web application for users and ensure its usefulness and sustainability [33].

This study evaluated the user experience of Icanbewell, a free, bilingual, pan-Canadian, evidence-based digital tool for prevention of disease. Our findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the use of DHIs. User suggestions for improvement of this low-cost digital tool highlight several areas for priority in the development of an online Canadian health tool. Creating user-friendly navigation to enable individuals to access relevant information amid the overwhelming amount of Canadian health resources is paramount. Subsequent work should prioritize representative sampling to gather feedback from unattached individuals, younger populations, health care providers, and geographically diverse locations. Future involvement of patient partners in the design and evaluation of the web application is essential to ensure its inclusivity and relevance. Research on the effective delivery of free and reliable preventive health information to Canadians remains critical to combat misinformation and support the public through the ongoing primary care access crisis.