Health information searching behavior in MedlinePlus and the impact of tasks

Zhang, Yan; Wang, Peiling; Heaton, Amy; Winkler, Heidi

doi:10.1145/2110363.2110434

Cited by 28 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Clicking on links (and tiles) indicates the effort of in-depth understanding about a topic and represents the depth of search. Query reformulation is an essential concept in exploratory search for measuring the degree of information exploration [43,44]. In the context of this study, query reformulation refers to issuing a new search query in the baseline website or adjusting the sliders in BHX.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Health Websites Based on Users’ Web-Based Information-Seeking Behaviors: A Mixed-Method Observational Study

Li¹,

Chang²,

Verspoor³

et al. 2016

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundLaypeople increasingly use the Internet as a source of health information, but finding and discovering the right information remains problematic. These issues are partially due to the mismatch between the design of consumer health websites and the needs of health information seekers, particularly the lack of support for “exploring” health information.ObjectiveThe aim of this research was to create a design for consumer health websites by supporting different health information–seeking behaviors. We created a website called Better Health Explorer with the new design. Through the evaluation of this new design, we derive design implications for future implementations.MethodsBetter Health Explorer was designed using a user-centered approach. The design was implemented and assessed through a laboratory-based observational study. Participants tried to use Better Health Explorer and another live health website. Both websites contained the same content. A mixed-method approach was adopted to analyze multiple types of data collected in the experiment, including screen recordings, activity logs, Web browsing histories, and audiotaped interviews.ResultsOverall, 31 participants took part in the observational study. Our new design showed a positive result for improving the experience of health information seeking, by providing a wide range of information and an engaging environment. The results showed better knowledge acquisition, a higher number of page reads, and more query reformulations in both focused and exploratory search tasks. In addition, participants spent more time to discover health information with our design in exploratory search tasks, indicating higher engagement with the website. Finally, we identify 4 design considerations for designing consumer health websites and health information–seeking apps: (1) providing a dynamic information scope; (2) supporting serendipity; (3) considering trust implications; and (4) enhancing interactivity.ConclusionsBetter Health Explorer provides strong support for the heterogeneous and shifting behaviors of health information seekers and eases the health information–seeking process. Our findings show the importance of understanding different health information–seeking behaviors and highlight the implications for designers of consumer health websites and health information–seeking apps.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Health Websites Based on Users’ Web-Based Information-Seeking Behaviors: A Mixed-Method Observational Study

Li¹,

Chang²,

Verspoor³

et al. 2016

J Med Internet Res

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show abstract

“…Most existing studies on consumer health information searching examined how users perform exploratory searches to learn about or investigate a health concern (Cartright, White, & Horvitz, ; Keselman, Browne, & Kaufman, ; Sillence, Briggs, Fishwick, & Harris, ; Zhang, Wang, Heaton, & Winkler, ). Few studies have paid attention to those simple and specific searches (termed specific tasks hereafter) that consumers carry out for concrete, factual information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching for specific health‐related information in MedlinePlus: Behavioral patterns and user experience

Zhang

2013

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

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Searches for specific factual health information constitute a significant part of consumer health information requests, but little is known about how users search for such information. This study attempts to fill this gap by observing users' behavior while using MedlinePlus to search for specific health information. Nineteen students participated in the study, and each performed 12 specific tasks. During the search process, they submitted short queries or complete questions, and they examined less than 1 result per search. Participants rarely reformulated queries; when they did, they tended to make a query more specific or more general, or iterate in different ways. Participants also browsed, primarily relying on the alphabetical list and the anatomical classification, to navigate to specific health topics. Participants overall had a positive experience with MedlinePlus, and the experience was significantly correlated with task difficulty and participants' spatial abilities. The results suggest that, to better support specific item search in the health domain, systems could provide a more "natural" interface to encourage users to ask questions; effective conceptual hierarchies could be implemented to help users reformulate queries; and the search results page should be reconceptualized as a place for accessing answers rather than documents. Moreover, multiple schemas should be provided to help users navigate to a health topic. The results also suggest that users' experience with information systems in general and health-related systems in particular should be evaluated in relation to contextual factors, such as task features and individual differences.

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“…These search tasks were carefully designed and the vignettes carefully worded to represent a range of clinical contexts and levels of difficulty, as has been done with other information retrieval studies. 42 These tasks and vignettes were first drafted by a clinician on the research team (DAH), pilot-tested with several EMERSE users and laypersons, and then finalized through research group discussion. For each task, we verified that the 2011 TREC corpus contained at least a handful of clinical documents that would be matched and retrieved.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and empirical user-centered evaluation of semantically-based query recommendation for an electronic health record search engine

Hanauer

Yang

et al. 2017

Journal of Biomedical Informatics

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Objective The utility of biomedical information retrieval environments can be severely limited when users lack expertise in constructing effective search queries. To address this issue, we developed a computer-based query recommendation algorithm that suggests semantically interchangeable terms based on an initial user-entered query. In this study, we assessed the value of this approach, which has broad applicability in biomedical information retrieval, by demonstrating its application as part of a search engine that facilitates retrieval of information from electronic health records (EHRs). Materials and Methods The query recommendation algorithm utilizes MetaMap to identify medical concepts from search queries and indexed EHR documents. Synonym variants from UMLS are used to expand the concepts along with a synonym set curated from historical EHR search logs. The empirical study involved 33 clinicians and staff who evaluated the system through a set of simulated EHR search tasks. User acceptance was assessed using the widely used technology acceptance model. Results The search engine's performance was rated consistently higher with the query recommendation feature turned on vs. off. The relevance of computer-recommended search terms was also rated high, and in most cases the participants had not thought of these terms on their own. The questions on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use received overwhelmingly positive responses. A vast majority of the participants wanted the query recommendation feature to be available to assist in their day-to-day EHR search tasks. Discussion and Conclusion Challenges persist for users to construct effective search queries when retrieving information from biomedical documents including those from EHRs. This study demonstrates that semantically-based query recommendation is a viable solution to addressing this challenge.

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Health information searching behavior in MedlinePlus and the impact of tasks

Cited by 28 publications

References 24 publications

Designing Health Websites Based on Users’ Web-Based Information-Seeking Behaviors: A Mixed-Method Observational Study

Designing Health Websites Based on Users’ Web-Based Information-Seeking Behaviors: A Mixed-Method Observational Study

Searching for specific health‐related information in MedlinePlus: Behavioral patterns and user experience

Development and empirical user-centered evaluation of semantically-based query recommendation for an electronic health record search engine

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