Identifying the technical requirements for designing health portals

Aim: Considering technical requirements in the design of health portals increases the validity of information. This study identified the technical and content structure required to create these portals. Methods: This was a qualitative study which was conducted in 2020. A combination of comprehensive review and interview was used. The search was performed in Elsevier, EBSCO, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, IEEE databases using the keywords such as Capabilities, Mechanisms, Tools, Technical requirement, Health portals, Portals, Web portals and Patient portals. Interview data were also collected from a sample of 12 web-design experts selected through snowball sampling method. The data were analyzed using content analysis method, and MAXQDA software V10 was used to encode and categorize the data. Results: In the comprehensive review section, a total of 138 required features for designing health portals were obtained from 16 articles. They were categorized into four categories: content, content structure, design technical requirements, and host features. From the interviews with the experts, eight main themes and 23 sub-themes were identified as requirements for designing health portals. These eight main themes included security, scalability, host features, usability, speed and simplicity, multi-platform, content management and customization.  Conclusion: This study identified a comprehensive combination of technical requirements which can be used by researchers and experts in this field to effectively design health portals.