ASSESSING THE USEFULNESS OF SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR AIDING MEANINGFUL ACCESS OF INTERNET HEALTH INFORMATION BY OLDER USERS

摘要

Consumers are increasingly using the Internet as a source of health information. Olderusers in particular, who generally have more health-related issues to contend with, can standto benefit greatly from the vast resources of health information that the Internet can provide.However, finding, integrating, and making sense of such information in support of healthmanagement can be challenging for these users, especially in the face of age-related declinesin cognitive abilities that are critical for Internet health information seeking. In this study,data from three focus groups comprised of 23 Internet users 65 years of age or older werecollected to investigate the potential usefulness of four software tools that, in principle, offerthe capability for aiding such users in their Internet health information search and decisionmakingactivities. The data revealed both positive features and concerns with these tools.Overall, these data provided valuable guidance for an initial phase of design interventionsdirected at making these tools more usable and effective for supporting Internet healthinformationseeking for older users, and in the process for other users as well.