Going online for health advice: Changes in usage and trust practices over the last five years

In recent years the number of health related websites has increased dramatically and so have concerns regarding the quality of online information. The sheer volume of sites and the variety of information available have left health consumers potentially with greater choice but it is not clear whether these online changes are reflected in user behaviour. This study addresses whether users are becoming more proficient in searching for credible, high quality information and whether they are more demanding of the type of information being sought and less ready to trust online health advice. This paper describes changes in the use of the Internet for health advice over a five-year period. It compares findings from two large-scale online questionnaire studies undertaken in 2000 and 2005. Key changes and similarities in usage and trust practices are noted. The rise in unregulated sites is discussed in terms of patients “acting as scientists” using websites to test out theories regarding their health. The increasing importance of design issues is also highlighted and implications for website designers and content providers are presented.     

Cultural Cognitive Style and Web Design: Beyond a Behavioral Inquiry into Computer-Mediated Communication

Numerous studies have identified links among culture, user preferences, and Web site usability. Most of these studies were reports of findings from a behavioral perspective in explaining how cultural factors affect processes of Web-related content design and use. Based on the research of Vygotsky and Nisbett, the authors propose a broader model, referred to as "cultural cognition theory," by which Web design, like other types of information production, is seen as being shaped by cultural cognitive processes that impact the designers' cognitive style. This study explores issues related to Web designers' cultural cognitive styles and their impact on user responses. The results of an online experiment that exposed American ¹ and Chinese users to sites created by both Chinese and American designers indicate that users perform information-seeking tasks faster when using Web content created by designers from their own cultures.     

基于线索特征的Web信息时效性评价方法

网络的快速发展使得在线新闻媒体成为人们获取信息的重要来源。Web站点发布的信息是否能够反映当前关注的热点，是否能够及时发布事件的最新进展情况，对Web站点的可用性有重大影响。在利用条件随机场（CRF）模型识别主题线索句的基础上，得到与Web信息相关的同一主题的线索发展趋势。通过获得的线索发展趋势来推断主题线索的时间区间，进而估计出Web信息的有效区间，在此基础上结合时效性所包含的发布及时性和内容新鲜性两个方面来对Web信息时效性进行合理的评价。实验结果表明，所提方法在Web信息时效性评价上有较好的效果。     

User satisfaction from commercial web sites: The effect of design and use

We empirically investigated the effect of user-based design and Web site usability on user satisfaction across four types of commercial Web sites: online shopping, customer self-service, trading, and publish/subscribe. To this end, a Web-based survey questionnaire was assembled, based on previously reported instruments for measuring user satisfaction, usability, and user-based design. Three hundred and fifty-nine respondents used the questionnaire to rate a collection of 20 popular commercial Web sites.Data collected were analyzed to test four hypotheses on the relationships among the attributes examined. The Web site attributes were also plotted on bi-dimensional perceptual maps in order to visualize their interactions. The two techniques yielded the same result, namely that trading sites are the lowest rated and that online shopping and customer self-service sites should serve as models for Web site developers. These findings are especially useful for designers of electronic commerce (EC) Web sites and can aid in the development and maintenance phases of Web site creation.     

A Measurement and Structural Model for Usability Evaluation of Shared Workspace Groupware

This study presents the development process of a set of questionnaire items to establish a measurement model for the usability of shared workspace groupware systems, which is suggested as a usability scale called SWUS, the Shared Workspace Usability Scale. Manifest variables and latent variables are based on the various dimensions of teamwork collated through the literature. A structural model was built on the measurement model. Models were evaluated through PLS-SEM methods. Data acquired on candidate questionnaire items from 398 international respondents who are users of five different online collaborative word processors was used for the model analysis. Of 37 candidate manifest variables, 22 were retained, which were measuring seven latent constructs: “3C Mechanisms,” “Grounding,” “Team Integration,” “Communication,” “Shared Access,” “Awareness,” and “Usability.” The data provided empirical evidence for the structural model based on these latent variables. The responses of the participants were not sensitive to differences between users in terms of gender and native language but showed sensitivity to age, experience with the evaluated software, and different shared workspace groupware evaluated in the study. Our structural model attempts to integrate several frameworks and models of usability for CSCW environments and provides empirical evidence for its reliability and validity based on subjective responses from users of shared workspace groupware.     

User-centric adaptation of Web information for small screens

A global increase in PDA and cell phone ownership and a rise in the use of wireless services lead mobile browsing to become an important means of Internet access. However, mobile devices have a small screen, which limits the usability of mobile browsing. This paper presents a novel method that automatically adapts a desktop presentation to a mobile presentation, proceeding in two steps: detecting boundaries among different information blocks (i.e., page segmentation) and then generating a user preferred adaptive layout. Distinct from other approaches, our approach analyzes both the DOM structure and the visual layout to detect closely related contents. In the process of page segmentation, our approach first divides a Web page into several common areas (such as top, bottom, and main content), and then further identifies different topics in the main content based on the visual and structural analysis. The page segmentation produces a block tree, which represents the information organization underlying a Web page. Based on the block tree, an adaptive layout, which places closely related information in proximity and minimizes scrolling, is automatically generated. All current approaches support only one fixed style (e.g., a narrow-page style) to render an adaptive layout for a diverse range of users, Websites, and devices. This “one size fits all” strategy could not offer universal usability. Our approach supports a user to flexibly specify the style of an adaptive layout according to his/her personal preferences. The theoretical foundation of such a user-centric adaptive layout is a feature space, which specifies an adaptive layout from different aspects, such as the location and presentation of navigation options. A user can visually manipulate those features to create a personalized style in a graphical user interface, and then an adaptive layout consistent with the personalized style is automatically generated. The user study based on a prototype shows the usability and efficiency of mobile browsing are significantly improved.     

A fuzzy preference‐ranking model for a quality evaluation of hospital web sites

This article presents a quality evaluation model for measuring the performance of hospital Web sites. The model is developed on the basis of a conceptual framework, which consists of seven major e‐service quality dimensions, including tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, confidence, empathy, quality of information, and integration of communication issues of Web sites. The dimensions and their associated attributes are first obtained from published articles in the health care and information technology literature and then adapted according to the suggestions of related domain experts. Two multicriteria decision‐making methods are used in the evaluation procedure. Determined Web site evaluation dimensions and their relevant attributes are weighted using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Vagueness in some stages of the evaluation required the incorporation of fuzzy numbers in the assessment process. Both fuzzy and crisp data are then synthesized using the fuzzy PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation) ranking method. The model is applied initially to measure the performance of the Web sites of Turkish hospitals. This study should be of interest to health care and technology practitioners and researchers, as the findings shed light on the further development of performance measurements for hospital Web sites. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 21: 1181–1197, 2006.     

Please advise: using the Internet for health and financial advice

The Internet is a popular source of information and advice especially within the fields of health and finance. Previous research has raised the issue of quality with respect to online information and has suggested differences between the way consumers and experts search for and appraise online information. However, many studies have asked students to act as ‘consumers’ or have relied upon artificial search tasks. This paper reports on research using ‘genuine’ consumers. The first study examines the trust markers held by genuine consumers in both the health and finance domains. The second study explores the perceptions of people who have actually used sources of online advice. The results indicate similarities between the trust markers of genuine consumers and experts. Trust markers differed between the two domains of health and finance and this was revealed in terms of the features of the sites visited. Genuine consumers may have different requirements and may be under different pressures compared to expert evaluators.     

Outsourcing, ASP und Managed Services

In this paper we provide an overview about information which can be retrieved about “outsourcing” from the Web. We show that some terms related to outsourcing should also be considered. The supply of information is dominated by service providers and consultancies and by media companies providing portals and specialized online journals.     

A Multifaceted Tool for a Complex Phenomenon: Coding Web‐Based Interactivity as Technologies for Interaction Evolve

Analysis of interactivity in Web sites is an important extension of a long tradition of analyzing content of media messages. But both interactivity and online analysis of content and features offer unique challenges to researchers. This study develops and tests a tool for measuring interactivity in the context of health‐related Web sites. The tool was flexible enough to distinguish among multiple types of interactivity and powerful enough to show differences in interactivity based on domain type. Thus, it should have a relatively long life as a multifaceted tool for the tough job of measuring interactivity online.     

Evaluation of earcons for portable digital electronic products considering perceptual user characteristics

Earcons, nonverbal sound feedback, have been used for electronic products to give appropriate feedback information for the selected user functions. This study evaluated earcon usability of a portable digital electronic product based on cognition time, error rate, and subjective feelings using 20 male and female subjects. For subjective evaluation, the study assessed various earcons by subjective impression of sounds using 7‐point rating scales. For earcon usability performance, major user functions were used for the product with currently available earcons and for the product with the new earcons (suggested by this study), which considered perceptual characteristics, such as loudness and melody. Statistical results from the study indicated that the new earcons significantly reduced user error rates and therefore generally improved user performance on major functions, such as “PLAY,” “OFF,” “STOP,” “FF” (fast forward), and “REW” (rewind). Subjective data results also showed that users were more satisfied with the new, melody‐based sound feedback. Practical guidelines for sound feedback design of a small digital product are suggested. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A framework for understanding trust factors in web-based health advice

Trust is a key factor in consumer decisions about website engagement. Consumers will engage with sites they deem trustworthy and turn away from those they mistrust. In this paper, we present a framework for understanding trust factors in web-based health advice. The framework is derived from a staged model of trust and allows predictions to be made concerning user engagement with different health websites. The framework is then validated via a series of qualitative, longitudinal studies. In each study, genuine consumers searched online for information and advice concerning their specific health issue. They engaged in free searching and were directed towards sites previously reviewed using the framework. Thematic analysis of the group discussions provided support for the framework and for the staged model of trust wherein design appeal predicted rejection (mistrust) and credibility of information and personalization of content predicted selection (trust) of advice sites. The results are discussed in terms of the merits of the framework, its limitations and directions for future work.     

Why Johnny can't surf (safely)? Attacks and defenses for web users

In their seminal article “Why Johnny Can't Encrypt” [Whitten A, Tygar JD. Why Johnny can't encrypt: a usability case study of PGP 5.0. In: Proceedings of the eighth USENIX security symposium; August 1999.], Whitten and Tygar showed that usability weaknesses of encryption software may result in failure to protect users, in spite of good cryptography. A similar situation happens, on a huge scale, on the Web: the widely deployed SSL/TLS protocols provide good cryptography, yet there is a growing amount of successful attacks on web users, causing massive damages. In this article, we focus on password theft via fake websites, to which we refer as phishing. We believe that phishing is currently the most severe threat facing web users.We begin with a brief review of SSL/TLS. Many sensitive sites do not use SSL/TLS, or use it incorrectly (e.g. to encrypt password, filled into an unprotected login form); we explain why.Even if sites use SSL/TLS (correctly), this may not be enough to prevent phishing – at least, using the basic security and identification indicators of most browsers (URL, padlock and HTTPS). We discuss basic and advanced indicators, and their usability problems. We review recent usability studies, whose results are rather alarming, and put in question the ability of users to avoid phishing sites based on security and identification indicators.     

Online News Production in Flanders: How Flemish Online Journalists Perceive and Explore the Internet''s Potential

This study proposes and tests a model of online information disclosure to commercial Web sites, which is an important component of e-commerce. Based on social exchange theory and research on self-disclosure in interpersonal contexts, the model emphasizes the role of trust and past online behavior in the disclosure of personal information to a commercial Web site created for this study. Data collected to test the model confirmed all predicted paths. A second aim of this exploratory research was to examine the nature and quality of online disclosure. Data show differences in online information disclosure depending on the characteristics of Internet users and the type of information requested from commercial Web sites.     

Enhancing usability testing through datamining techniques: A novel approach to detecting usability problem patterns for a context of use

Usability is a software attribute usually associated with the “ease of use and to learn” of a given interactive system. Nowadays usability evaluation is becoming an important part of software development, providing results based on quantitative and qualitative estimations. In this context, qualitative results are usually obtained through a Qualitative Usability Testing process which includes a number of different methods focused on analyzing the interface of a particular interactive system. These methods become complex when a large number of interactive systems belonging to the same context of use have to be jointly considered to provide a general diagnosis, as a considerable amount of information must be visualized and treated simultaneously. However, diagnosing the most general usability problems of a context of use as a whole from a qualitative viewpoint is a challenge for UE nowadays. Identifying such problems can help to evaluate a new interface belonging to this context, and to prevent usability errors when a novel interactive system is being developed. From a quantitative viewpoint, condensing results in singles scores, metrics or statistical functions is an acceptable solution for processing huge amounts of usability related information. Nevertheless, QUT processes need to keep their richness by prioritizing the “what” over the “how much/how many” questions related to the detection of usability problems.To cope with the above situation, this paper presents a new approach in which two datamining techniques (association rules and decision trees) are used to extend the existing Qualitative Usability Testing process in order to provide a general usability diagnosis of a given context of use from a qualitative viewpoint. In order to validate our proposal, usability problems patterns belonging to academic webpages in Spanish-speaking countries are assessed by processing 3450 records which store qualitative information collected by means of a Heuristic Evaluation.     

Benefits of nanotechnology for occupational ergonomic design: A positive step toward more protection of workers' health

Nowadays, the combination of “Nanotechnology” and “Ergonomics” has been known as “Nano-ergonomics.” Nano-ergonomics can help to develop more comfortable conditions in workplaces. So, the aim of this study is to reveal benefits of nanotechnology for occupational health and safety design, especially ergonomic design. The search strategy was provided based on cochrane guidelines with main search terms of “Nanotechnology,” “Nanomaterial,” and “Nanoparticle” combined with “Ergonomics” and “Human Factors.” PubMed, Scopus, Web of Sciences and Google Scholar Databases were researched for relevant articles. Also, Google search engine was used to find nano-ergonomic commercial products and to complete the research with identifying additional information. A total of 32 articles were first achieved. By providing Synthesis Without Meta-analysis reporting guideline, finally, four studies were regarded as appropriate. The results showed that nanotechnology has developed in three major areas of ergonomics such as physical, environmental, and cognitive ergonomics, which is a positive step toward more protection of workers' health. Although, there are not any original article related to nanotechnology for ergonomic product design, they are offered as the commercial products by the largest companies such as Amazon. Also, workers at the nanotechnology-related industries have the challenges of exposure to toxic nanomaterials. So, before the application of nanomaterials, we should have proper knowledge of nanomaterials-caused toxic hazards and how to handle them.     

An intelligent Internet information delivery system to evaluate site preferences

Due to the continual growth of the popularity of the Internet, commercial as well as industrial companies have been advertising their products and services via the Web, resulting in a drastic increase in the number of Web sites. With a huge amount of information available on various Web sites, it is important that the relevant and useful information favored by individual visitors is delivered to the destinations in a timely manner. The two traditional approaches for sorting web information including search engines and hierarchical indices require specific input by the visitors who may not have any specific favorite sites in mind. In most cases, site surfers are just “window-shopping” on the Internet, looking for “exciting” things. This paper proposes the development of an Intelligent Internet Information Delivery System (IIIDS) which is characterized by its machine learning capability based on the data of site spots “movements” by the users within the Web pages and then evaluates the site preferences of the relevant users by means of fuzzy logic principle. The development of IIIDS and the test of a prototype to evaluate its feasibility are covered in this paper.     

Usability Ratings for Everyday Products Measured With the System Usability Scale

This article characterizes the usability of 14 common, everyday products using the System Usability Scale (SUS). More than 1,000 users were queried about the usability of these products using an online survey methodology. The study employed two novel applications of the SUS. First, participants were not asked to perform specific tasks on these products before rating their usability but were rather asked to assess usability based on their overall integrated experience with a given product. Second, some of the evaluated products were assessed as a class of products (e.g., “microwaves”) rather than a specific make and model, as is typically done. The results show clear distinctions among different products and will provide practitioners and researchers with important known benchmarks as they seek to characterize and describe results from their own usability studies.     

Always Connected or Always Distracted? ADHD Symptoms and Social Assurance Explain Problematic Use of Mobile Phone and Multicommunicating

Multicommunicating via mobile phone during face‐to‐face encounters with family and friends was examined with data from an online survey of 432 adults in the US. Multicommunicating was positively associated with problematic mobile phone use and explained by attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and a social need to belong. Those with ADHD symptoms were more likely to engage in problematic mobile phone use and frequent multicommunicating. Strong need for social assurance, which involves an “always‐on‐and‐connected” lifestyle through mobile devices, explained problematic mobile phone use and multicommunicating. Need for social assurance also was related to multicommunicating via social connectedness, and this effect was significant among females, but not males. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.