Background: The availability and use of mobile apps in health and nutrition management are increasing. Ease of access and user friendliness make diet-tracking apps an important ally in their users’ efforts to lose and manage weight. To foster motivation for long-term use and to achieve goals, it is necessary to better understand users’ opinions and needs for dietary self-monitoring. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify the key topics and issues that users highlight in their reviews of diet-tracking apps on Google Play Store. Identifying the topics that users frequently mention in their reviews of these apps, along with the user ratings for each of these apps, allowed us to identify areas where further improvement of the apps could facilitate app use, and support users’ weight loss and intake management efforts. Methods: We collected 72,084 user reviews from Google Play Store for 15 diet-tracking apps that allow users to track and count calories. After a series of text processing operations, two text-mining techniques (topic modeling and topical n-grams) were applied to the corpus of user reviews of diet-tracking apps. Results: Using the topic modeling technique, 11 separate topics were extracted from the pool of user reviews. Most of the users providing feedback were generally satisfied with the apps they use (average rating of 4.4 out of 5 for the 15 apps). Most topics referred to the positive evaluation of the apps and their functions. Negatively rated topics mostly referred to app charges and technical difficulties encountered. We identified the positive and negative topic trigrams (3-word combinations) among the most frequently mentioned topics. Usability and functionality (tracking options) of apps were rated positively on average. Negative ratings were associated with trigrams related to adding new foods, technical issues, and app charges. Conclusions: Motivating users to use an app over time could help them better achieve their nutrition goals. Although user reviews generally showed positive opinions and ratings of the apps, developers should pay more attention to users’ technical problems and inform users about expected payments, along with their refund and cancellation policies, to increase user loyalty.

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中文翻译：

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饮食跟踪应用程序的用户视角：评论内容分析和主题建模

背景：移动应用程序在健康和营养管理中的可用性和使用率正在增加。易于访问和用户友好性使饮食跟踪应用程序成为用户努力减肥和管理体重的重要盟友。为了培养长期使用的动机并实现目标，有必要更好地了解用户对饮食自我监测的意见和需求。目标：这项研究的目的是确定用户在他们对 Google Play 商店中的饮食跟踪应用程序的评论中强调的关键主题和问题。确定用户在他们对这些应用程序的评论中经常提到的主题，以及每个应用程序的用户评分，使我们能够确定应用程序的进一步改进可以促进应用程序使用的领域，并支持用户的减肥和摄入管理努力。方法：我们收集了 72 个，来自 Google Play 商店的 084 条用户评论，涉及 15 款允许用户跟踪和计算卡路里的饮食跟踪应用程序。经过一系列的文本处理操作，两种文本挖掘技术（主题建模和主题 n-gram）被应用于饮食跟踪应用程序的用户评论语料库。结果：使用主题建模技术，从用户评论池中提取了 11 个单独的主题。大多数提供反馈的用户对他们使用的应用程序普遍感到满意（15 个应用程序的平均评分为 4.4 分，满分 5 分）。大多数主题都提到了对应用程序及其功能的正面评价。负面评价的主题主要是指应用程序收费和遇到的技术困难。我们确定了最常提到的主题中的正面和负面主题三元组（3 个词的组合）。应用程序的可用性和功能（跟踪选项）的平均评价为正面。负面评级与与添加新食物、技术问题和应用程序费用相关的三元组相关。结论：随着时间的推移，激励用户使用应用程序可以帮助他们更好地实现营养目标。虽然用户评论普遍对应用的评价和评分都持正面态度，但开发者应该更多地关注用户的技术问题，并告知用户预期付款以及退款和取消政策，以提高用户忠诚度。

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