An investigation of task characteristics and users’ evaluation of interaction design in different online health information systems

Abstract

This paper addresses the importance of improving users’ satisfaction and efficiency for obtaining health information through health information systems. In order to understand how task characteristics, such as type, complexity, and difficulty, affect user interaction with online health information systems in China, this paper investigates if and how various types of task and information systems lead to different user experience, and, how tasks affect users’ evaluation of the interaction design of specific systems. A user experiment was carried out with 24 participants completing two types of tasks with two levels of complexity on three popular health information systems in China. The two types of tasks comprise a high objective complexity task and a medium complexity task. The three selected health systems include the 39 Health Website, Quick Doctors, and Good Doctor Online. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed. The results indicate that the difference of both tasks and systems affect users’ judgment concerning task difficulty and complexity, as well as users’ evaluation of the interaction design of the systems. In order to better assist users with obtaining health information, this paper provides suggestions for improving the interaction design of health information systems from four aspects: website structure and information organization, webpage display, usability, and system performance. The limitations and future work are also discussed.