Abstract
South Africa's blood stock level is often categorised as alarmingly low, leaving blood
donation organisations in constant need of voluntary, unpaid blood donations to ensure
their ability to supply hospitals with safe blood. Globally, there are successful mobile blood
donation apps facilitating blood donation by providing useful services to blood donors,
however similar apps available in South Africa are new, and not popular when compared
to global standards. An estimated 5.9 million South Africans download and use mobile
applications (apps), and this paper explores the process and results from the first phase of
a study, which employed a sequential mixed method research design, to identify userpreferred
features for a mobile blood donation app. The findings of the study should serve
as a roadmap to blood donation organisations in South Africa, regarding what users expect
from a blood donation app, and which features may possibly stimulate a constant or
increased frequency of blood donation instances. The two largest app stores, Google Play
and Apple iOS, served as the sources of the eventual sample of blood donation apps, of
which the user reviews were analysed. Commenting from a design science paradigm, this
paper reports on the selection process that had been followed to sample the relevant apps,
and further discusses the user insights gained from the analysis of these apps' reviews.
The paper further reports on how the app review analysis findings informed the creation of
an interview schedule, that was used to gain in-depth understanding of perceptions held
by users of the blood donation apps, specifically regarding the users' preferred features in
these types of apps.