Calvano Joshua David, Fundingsland Edwin Lauritz, Lai Deborah, Silacci Sara, Raja Ali S, He Shuhan
Department of Research, Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Parker, CO, United States.
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Bloomsbury, United Kingdom.
JMIR Hum Factors. 2021 Mar 29;8(1):e20721. doi: 10.2196/20721.
As the public increasingly uses the internet to search for resources and information regarding health and medicine, it is important that health care organizations provide adequate web resources. Website usability refers to the ease of user experience on a website. In this study, we conducted usability analyses on digital health center websites.
The primary aims of this study were to (1) replicate a preexisting usability scoring methodology for digital health centers; (2) apply and test this replicated usability scoring methodology on a sample set of digital health center websites; and (3) derive recommendations from the results on potential areas of improvements for our sample of digital health center websites.
Website usability testing was conducted from March 1, 2020, to March 15, 2020. We replicated a methodology and scoring system from previous literature and applied them to digital health center websites. Our sample included 67 digital health centers that were affiliated with US universities or hospital systems. Usability was split into the following four broad categories: accessibility, marketing, content quality, and technology. Usability tools were used to score websites in each of the four categories. The composite of the key factors of each category was used to generate a general usability and overall usability score for each website.
The category with the highest average score (6.3) was content quality. The content quality score also had the highest SD (2.18) and an SE of 0.27. The lowest performing category was technology, which had an average score of 0.9. The technology score also had the smallest SD (0.07) and an SE of 0.01.
Our data suggest that content quality, on average, was the highest scoring variable among digital health center websites. As content is crucial to digital health knowledge, it is justified that digital health centers invest more resources into creating quality content. The overall lowest scoring variable was technology. Potential reasons for this finding include designated funding for servers, a lack of regulatory frameworks for social media presence and liability, and infrequent website audits. An easy approach for improving this variable is increasing website speed. Accessibility is another area that organizations can potentially improve. We recommend that these organizations perform periodic audits of their web presence with usability tools.
随着公众越来越多地使用互联网搜索有关健康和医学的资源与信息，医疗保健机构提供充足的网络资源至关重要。网站可用性是指用户在网站上的体验难易程度。在本研究中，我们对数字健康中心网站进行了可用性分析。
本研究的主要目的是：（1）复制一种针对数字健康中心的现有可用性评分方法；（2）在一组数字健康中心网站样本上应用并测试这种复制的可用性评分方法；（3）根据结果得出关于我们的数字健康中心网站样本潜在改进领域的建议。
网站可用性测试于2020年3月1日至2020年3月15日进行。我们复制了先前文献中的一种方法和评分系统，并将其应用于数字健康中心网站。我们的样本包括67个隶属于美国大学或医院系统的数字健康中心。可用性分为以下四大类：可访问性、营销、内容质量和技术。使用可用性工具对四个类别中的每个网站进行评分。每个类别的关键因素的综合得分用于为每个网站生成一般可用性和整体可用性得分。
平均得分最高的类别（6.3）是内容质量。内容质量得分的标准差也最高（2.18），标准误为0.27。表现最差的类别是技术，平均得分为0.9。技术得分的标准差也最小（0.07），标准误为0.01。
我们的数据表明，平均而言，内容质量是数字健康中心网站中得分最高的变量。由于内容对于数字健康知识至关重要，数字健康中心投入更多资源来创建高质量内容是合理的。得分总体最低的变量是技术。这一发现的潜在原因包括服务器的指定资金、缺乏社交媒体存在和责任的监管框架以及网站审核不频繁。提高这个变量的一个简单方法是提高网站速度。可访问性是组织可能潜在改进的另一个领域。我们建议这些组织使用可用性工具对其网络存在进行定期审核。
