Digital SPA +

Digital SPA+ is a support app for mothers, fathers, and other caregivers of adolescents with chronic pain. Developed as part of the Digital SPA research project led by the University of Málaga, it provides rigorous, evidence-based information, practical resources, and support tools to ease families' daily lives and promote a more effective, comprehensive, and sustainable approach to chronic pain.

It is the companion app to Digital SPA, the adolescent app, allowing caregivers to follow the adolescent's progress and accompany them throughout the process while always respecting the adolescent's privacy.

The app brings together monitoring, organization, and evidence-based content in a single environment designed around the real needs of caregivers. Its main features include:

Pairing with the Adolescent

The connection between a caregiver and an adolescent is established from Digital SPA+, where the caregiver sends the pairing request. Once linked, the caregiver gains access to the adolescent's shared activity and can support them through the app.

Monitoring the Adolescent's Progress

Caregivers can follow the adolescent's shared activity through the centralized calendar, including their records, treatments, and appointments. The adolescent's private notes and challenge results are never shared, so caregivers can offer support while the adolescent's most personal data remains private.

Pain Alerts

When the adolescent reports the maximum pain level, the caregiver automatically receives a push notification on their device, so they can act in time.

Treatment and Appointment Organization

Treatment reminders and appointment alerts sync between both apps and trigger on the caregiver's device alongside the adolescent's, helping caregivers stay aligned with the adolescent's care and never miss an important moment.

Evidence-based Content and Resources

The app offers rigorous, evidence-based content delivered through audio, video, and text, helping caregivers better understand pediatric chronic pain and how to support the adolescent effectively.

Digital SPA+ is part of the Digital SPA research project and is grounded in scientific evidence on pediatric chronic pain, psychological intervention, and family support. Its development followed an interdisciplinary approach and a design process focused on the real needs of adolescents, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.

The project is led by the University of Málaga and is currently undergoing scientific evaluation in Spain. It was created by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in clinical and health psychology, pediatric pain, pediatrics, physiotherapy, computer engineering, and design, led by Dr. Rocío de la Vega, a researcher specializing in digital health and chronic pain in young people.

As this was a freelance project carried out within the Digital SPA research project led by the University of Málaga, I managed the entire product lifecycle. As with the adolescent app, the real needs of its users, caregivers, adolescents, and healthcare professionals, were central to how the product took shape, and their feedback drove its direction across multiple iterations.

Requirements Gathering and Definition

Working closely with the client and their end users, I led several iterations of product definition involving real caregivers and families. Each iteration followed the same loop: gathering requirements directly from users, translating them into UX and then UI, and bringing the results back to the users for validation through interactive prototypes. This continuous feedback shaped the scope and direction of the product significantly, grounded in my experience in user experience and product definition (a discipline rooted in my MSc from the Open University of Catalonia).

Collaboration with UI Designers

In all my freelance projects, collaborating with a designer is a key step in ensuring the app looks polished. I worked alongside the designer throughout the iterative process, validating each design round with real users via interactive prototypes and safeguarding the best possible UX, making sure the design was led by user experience rather than visual appeal alone, never beauty over functionality.

Development

Once the designs were consolidated, I moved on to development, applying clean architecture and clean-code practices regardless of platform, language, or framework. As with the design phase, development was validated iteratively: users tested the product across different phases, ensuring the final result matched their real needs. This project was built in Flutter; you can find more detail in the technical stack below.

Store Release

After development and testing with the client, using internal testing in Google Play for Android and TestFlight for iOS, I managed the full release process on both Google Play and the App Store, including compliance, privacy, assets, and all other requirements.