TY - GEN
T1 - Health information searching behavior in MedlinePlus and the impact of tasks
AU - Zhang, Yan
AU - Wang, Peiling
AU - Heaton, Amy
AU - Winkler, Heidi
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Consumer health information is increasingly available online, but this vast amount of information is not necessarily accessible to general consumers. To design effective health information websites, it is critically important to gain an in-depth understanding of how consumers search for health information in these systems. This study is an attempt to explore consumer health information searching behavior in web-based health information spaces by observing their search behaviors in MedlinePlus. Nineteen undergraduate students accomplished three search tasks in MedlinePlus. The participants used both searching and browsing as interaction strategies. This paper reports on the findings of their searching behaviors, particularly query construction, query reformulation, and access to results; and their browsing behaviors, particularly access to different resources, health topics, and related topics. Furthermore, we examined if the number of concepts involved in search tasks had any impact on search behaviors.
AB - Consumer health information is increasingly available online, but this vast amount of information is not necessarily accessible to general consumers. To design effective health information websites, it is critically important to gain an in-depth understanding of how consumers search for health information in these systems. This study is an attempt to explore consumer health information searching behavior in web-based health information spaces by observing their search behaviors in MedlinePlus. Nineteen undergraduate students accomplished three search tasks in MedlinePlus. The participants used both searching and browsing as interaction strategies. This paper reports on the findings of their searching behaviors, particularly query construction, query reformulation, and access to results; and their browsing behaviors, particularly access to different resources, health topics, and related topics. Furthermore, we examined if the number of concepts involved in search tasks had any impact on search behaviors.
KW - Consumer health informatics
KW - Health information searching behavior
KW - Health information systems
KW - MedlinePlus
KW - Search tasks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84863252135&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2110363.2110434
DO - 10.1145/2110363.2110434
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84863252135
SN - 9781450307819
T3 - IHI'12 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGHIT International Health Informatics Symposium
SP - 641
EP - 650
BT - IHI'12 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGHIT International Health Informatics Symposium
T2 - 2nd ACM SIGHIT International Health Informatics Symposium, IHI'12
Y2 - 28 January 2012 through 30 January 2012
ER -