ODPHP Project Reading Room

healthfinder.gov Evaluation Summary

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has conducted frequent evaluation activities on www.healthfinder.gov and other Web sites that ODPHP supports. 

2003

• Spring:  In partnership with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the Office of Minority Health (HHS), and the American Public Health Association's Asian Pacific Islander Caucus, ODPHP improved access to health information for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.  A revised Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander section was announced on May 13, 2003, by HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.  The user-friendly Web site brings together multilingual information in Chinese, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Laotian, Samoan, Thai, Tongan, and Vietnamese.  Lessons learned from extensive interviews and usability tests with community leaders from around the Nation are available in a report entitled “Understanding Our Users: How to Better Deliver Online Health Information to Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Other Pacific Islanders.”

2002

• Fall:  In partnership with Indian Health Service (HHS), Office of Minority Health (HHS), the American Public Health Association’s American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Caucus, and the National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, ODPHP improved access to health information for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The revised American Indian and Alaska Native section was announced November 7, 2002, by HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.  Lessons learned from extensive interviews and usability tests in Alaska, Arizona, and Colorado with American Indian and Alaska Native community leaders, patients, and students are available in a report entitled “Understanding Our Users: How to Better Deliver Online Health Information to American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
• October 2002-2003:  An online survey based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) was conducted on the site.

2001

• December: Usability testing with general audiences of the anthrax and bioterrorism pages of the current healthfinder site and the Surgeon General’s site was conducted.
• Summer:  To enhance the usefulness of the Spanish language section of healthfinder, ODPHP conducted focus groups (one with staff, another with Hispanic teens) and mini-usability tests with patients done in the waiting room of Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Health.  Patients had an opportunity to take part in our design process while we taught them how to use the Internet and healthfinder.  Most patients were first time users of the Internet but quickly learned how to use the site and thought it was easy to follow, clear and user-friendly.  The expanded español sub-site was released in September 2001.
• June:  ODPHP released the current version of www.healthfinder.gov; the new design, which was based on the evaluation completed in 2000, included a new site and database architecture, interactive features, a hierarchical thesaurus, and advanced searching and filtering tools for users.

2000

• December:  A new sub-site called healthfinder KIDS, targeted to ages 8-12, was released after focus groups and mini-usability tests at local elementary schools and after school programs.
• Summer:  The beta version of the main healthfinder.gov site was tested through mall intercepts, expert reviews (Molly Holzschlag, Robert Bailey, and Bud Kraus), usability tests (with the assistance of the Communication Technologies Branch of the National Cancer Institute), online comments, and card sorting. 
• Spring:  The alpha version of the main healthfinder.gov site was made available to selected consumer users, health professionals, and design professionals.  This version incorporated an online comment application that allowed testers to enter comments at any point within the site and associate them with specific pages and functions. 

1999

Methods used in the complete evaluation of www.healthfinder.gov conducted during 1999 included:

• An online survey of actual users of the live Web site (12,000 responses; user satisfaction >95%),
• Focus groups:
  • One online, representing visually impaired users,
  • Four face-to-face on the English site, representing persons older than 65, high school graduates, college graduates, and African Americans, and
  • Four face-to-face on the Spanish section of the site, representing Hispanic high school graduates, senior citizens, adults without high school diploma, and youth.
• Questions on an omnibus survey,
• Expert reviews on the English site (Keith Instone, Molly Holzschlag, Nancy Lorenzi, Barbara Holt) and the Spanish section (Julia Puebla Fortier and Isabel Goldenberg).
• An assessment of backward compatibility with older Web browsers. 

Updated May 16, 2007