Facilitating Consumer Clinical Information Seeking by Maintaining Referential Context: Evaluation of a Prototypic Approach

Millions of consumers seek health information on the Internet. Unfortunately, this searching often falls short because of design limitations of many consumer-oriented Web sites. In this paper, we describe an approach that addresses several known barriers to consumer health information seeking. This approach primarily involves maintaining the referential context throughout a consumer's search for information. To maintain referential context, this approach uses multiple levels of hierarchical constructs to organize complex information, and data elements are toggled to minimize the need for scrolling. An information resource based on this approach was implemented for information about smoking using standard Web technologies. The resource was evaluated by 31 diverse consumers through standardized usability instruments. Consumers found the resource to be easy to navigate and to use. We conclude that the approach described in this manuscript could be applied more broadly to facilitate the organization and presentation of consumer health information.