Health Literacy Online: Writing and Designing Easy-To-Use Health Web sites Sandra Williams Hilfiker, MA Office of Disease Prevention & Health Promotion, HHS

healthfinder.gov: Before

audience segmentation Literature Review Mental Models Study How do users think about prevention? In-depth Interviews Motives for seeking prevention info.— audience segmentation Card Sort How to organize information within a topic Prototype Study: paper and clickable Usability Test 1 Usability Test 3 Usability Test 2 How should topics be categorized? How can intermediaries use healthfinder? Usability Test 4 Next Step: Repeat portion of Process for Spanish

healthfinder.gov: After

7 Lessons Learned from Limited Literacy Web Users Willing and Able! Skipping instead of scanning Difficulty searching Narrow field of view Easily overwhelmed Limited working memory Prefer simple navigation

Skipping Instead of Scanning Read every word on the page Skip over entire chunks of dense text < 3 lines of text triggered skipping Numbers, %, big words triggered skipping Start clicking on links instead of reading the content May land in the middle of the page Sources: Summers and Summers 2004; Zarcadoolas et al; ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2006, 2007; Z-Tech for ODPHP 2007(b); Summers 2008

Example Users didn’t read this Users did read this

Difficulty Searching Avoid searching Prefer to browse topics using an alphabetical or topic list (even if the list is long) Provide multiple ways to browse (by A-Z and by topic) List topics under multiple categories Struggle with spelling when using the search function Sources: Summers and Summers 2004; Z-Tech Corp for ODPHP 2007(b); ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2008; Zarcadoolas et al 8

Example

Narrow Field of View & Easily Overwhelmed Focus on the center of the screen Content in right hand margin mistaken for ads and/or ignored Rarely scroll Even content written in plain language can look overwhelming Summers and Summers 2004, 2005; Zarcadoolas et al; ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2007; Summers 2008; UserWorks for ODPHP Summers and Summers 2005, UserWorks for ODPHP Summers and Summers 2004; Zarcadoolas et al; Summers 2008; UserWorks for ODPHP 10

Example

Limited Working Memory Information Overload – takes concentration and effort to read the text on the page Less likely to remember content from previous pages and are rarely looking ahead or back on a page Difficulty making the connection between the results page and the data they entered on the previous screen Summers and Summers 2004; ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2007; Summers 2008; Z-Tech Corp for ODPHP 2007(b) [ii] ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2007owing

Example

Prefer Simple Navigation Unfamiliar with – and often ignore – common navigational elements like drop-down menus and breadcrumbs Success with simple tabbed navigation with linear (numbered) pages Need to be able to use the back button Summers and Summers 2005; Zarcadoolas et al; UserWorks for ODPHP; Z-Tech Corp for ODPHP 2008; ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2007; Summers 2008 [ii] ACS Healthcare Solutions for ODPHP 2008; Summers 2008; UserWorks for ODPHP

Example

Coming Soon: “Health Literacy Online: A Guide to Writing and Designing Easy-to-Use Health Web sites” Thank you! sandraw.hilfiker@hhs.gov