Article

Designing consumer health information systems: what do user-generated questions tell us?

Authors:

Wai-Tat FuAuthors Info & Claims

FAC'11: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Foundations of augmented cognition: directing the future of adaptive systems

Pages 536 - 545

Published: 09 July 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Searching for health information has become a prevalent activity on the web. The information found online has a significant impact on people's decisions on whether to seek medical care and what treatments to undergo. However, existing studies consistently suggest that general consumers have various difficulties in formulating search queries using existing search engines and the queries were often not effective in retrieving personal- and situationalrelevant information. Understanding users' information needs is a gateway to designing effective information retrieval (IR) systems. In this study, we examined the types of information requested by users, the characteristics of consumers' expressions of their information needs, and their expectations for results by analyzing the questions that general users posted on Yahoo! Answers, a popular social Q&A site. Based on the results, we proposed design recommendations for facilitating users' ability to articulate their health information needs and recommendations for the presentation of information in health-related IR systems.

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Cited By

Pang PVerspoor KPearce JChang S(2015)Better Health ExplorerProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction10.1145/2838739.2838772(588-597)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2838739.2838772
Tamine LChouquet CPalmer T(2015)Analysis of biomedical and health queriesJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2335166:12(2626-2642)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.23351
Rodolfo ILaranjo LCorreia NDuarte CRoto VHäkkilä JVäänänen-Vainio-Mattila KJuhlin OOlsson THvannberg E(2014)Design strategy for a national integrated personal health recordProceedings of the 8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Fun, Fast, Foundational10.1145/2639189.2641205(411-420)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2639189.2641205
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Designing consumer health information systems: what do user-generated questions tell us?
1. Applied computing
  1. Life and medical sciences
    1. Consumer health
    2. Health informatics
2. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval

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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

FAC'11: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Foundations of augmented cognition: directing the future of adaptive systems

July 2011

666 pages

ISBN:9783642218514

Editors:
Dylan D. Schmorrow
United States Navy, Arlington, VA
,
Cali M. Fidopiastis
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 09 July 2011

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Cited By

Pang PVerspoor KPearce JChang S(2015)Better Health ExplorerProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction10.1145/2838739.2838772(588-597)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2838739.2838772
Tamine LChouquet CPalmer T(2015)Analysis of biomedical and health queriesJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2335166:12(2626-2642)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.23351
Rodolfo ILaranjo LCorreia NDuarte CRoto VHäkkilä JVäänänen-Vainio-Mattila KJuhlin OOlsson THvannberg E(2014)Design strategy for a national integrated personal health recordProceedings of the 8th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Fun, Fast, Foundational10.1145/2639189.2641205(411-420)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2639189.2641205
Li HSakamoto Y(2014)Social impacts in social mediaComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2014.08.00941:C(278-287)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2014.08.009
Willever-Farr HZach LForte AMai J(2012)Tell me about my familyProceedings of the 2012 iConference10.1145/2132176.2132215(303-310)Online publication date: 7-Feb-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2132176.2132215

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