Evaluating Digital Peer Support for Children Cured from Cancer

This article describes a case study of the challenges that emerged from a formative evaluation process with the purpose of evaluating a digital peer support (DPS) service for children between 8 and 12 cured from cancer. The evaluation of DPS for children is particularly challenging. While the literature on evaluation with children is extensive, challenges such as risk assessment that become prevalent in the evaluation of DPS are not highlighted. This case study analyzes how the DPS service was evaluated over the course of two usability tests, a two-week diary study, a focus group interview, and a survey. Challenges relating to ethics, trust, risk assessment, and recruitment emerged during the evaluation process. We identify key strategies to handle these challenges: progression, proxies, and reflection. Performing a multistage evaluation process with progressing sensitivity allowed control of some of the complexities of the context in order to balance the degree of the children's involvement with the degree of sensitivity.