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Understanding search failures in consumer health information systems
1National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium
|January 20, 2004
Summary
Analyzing search failures on consumer health websites revealed most queries were relevant but often lacked specific "consumer language." Understanding these search issues can improve health information access.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Information Retrieval
- Consumer Health Information
Background:
- National Library of Medicine (NLM) consumer health websites, ClinicalTrials.gov and MEDLINEplus, experience search failures.
- Understanding the nature of these search failures is crucial for improving user experience and information access.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze and categorize search queries that resulted in no results on NLM consumer health websites.
- To develop interventions to help users recover from search failures and improve health information retrieval.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of over 4,700 search queries from ClinicalTrials.gov and MEDLINEplus.
- Iterative development and application of a coding scheme to categorize queries.
- Development of a taxonomy for search failures based on content, query formulation, or system limitations.
Main Results:
- Most failed queries were in scope and relevant to the searched systems.
- Queries did not predominantly exhibit specialized "consumer language."
- Search failures were categorized into content issues, query formulation problems, and search system limitations.
Conclusions:
- Identifying the root causes of search failures is key to improving consumer health information access.
- The developed taxonomy can inform the design of interventions and system improvements.
- Findings can assist other organizations in enhancing user access to health information.