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Improving service of online health information provision: A case of usage-driven design for health information portals

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Abstract

Health information portals (HIPs) are now well-established channels for providing reliable and relevant health information as a service to health information consumers. The concept of a smart health information portal was proposed to improve the search experience of HIP users, advancing HIPs learning capability by looking at usage data. This paper describes a design-science research project which utilized insights from usage data to address search issues. A conceptual approach and an architecture to enable usage-driven capability are described. We propose two specific applications, a HIP-specific content issue reporting tool and a topic search feature, to demonstrate how usage data can enhance HIP operations and users’ search experience. Based on the demonstrated implementations and empirical analysis, this paper also discusses how usage-driven design can lead to improved service in online health information provision.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by grants from the Telematics Trust and Helen Macpherson Smith Trust, project: Breast Cancer Knowledge Online Portal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Bang Viet Nguyen, Frada Burstein & Julie Fisher

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  1. Bang Viet Nguyen
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  2. Frada Burstein
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  3. Julie Fisher
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Correspondence to Julie Fisher.

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Nguyen, B.V., Burstein, F. & Fisher, J. Improving service of online health information provision: A case of usage-driven design for health information portals. Inf Syst Front 17, 493–511 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-014-9507-4

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