social tags and controlled vocabularies as filters for searching and browsing - a health science...
TRANSCRIPT
Using Social Tags and Controlled Vocabularies As Filters for Searching and Browsing: A Health Science Experiment
HCIR 2011 – Google, Mountain View CA
Michael Zarro Xia Lin
How can an interactive interface support the 3rd most popular online activity?
80% of adult Internet users look for health information online
Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/2011/healthtopics
Background
Challenge
Myocardial Infarction
Heart Attack
Consumers are limited by the vocabulary gap [1] between expert content-creator and lay-user, and often know neither the information landscape nor have useful “navigational signposts” [2].
[1] Zeng, Q. and Tse, T. 2006. Exploring and developing consumer health vocabularies. JAMIA. 13, 1. 24-29.
[2] Kammerer, Y. et al. 2009. Signpost from the masses: learning effects in an exploratory social tag search browser. Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems (New York, NY, USA, 2009), 625–634.
Questions
• How does an interface enhanced with MeSH and social tags support user health information seeking tasks? Do users prefer to use social media (Delicious) tags or MeSH terms as filters while searching?
• Do users prefer resources retrieved provided by the NLM or Yahoo! when answering health questions?
Experiment
Experiment
• 20 participants
– 10 lay-users, students with no medical education
– 10 health/medical students, 2+ terms
• Answer 3 search scenariosScenario 2: risks and benefits of gastric bypass surgeryQuery Apply filter Apply filter Answer
• Think aloud data collected
• Post-test questionnaire and exit interview
Prototype System Backend
Query
Social media tagsControlled vocabulary terms
Medical Authority Search ResultsPublic Search Results
Prototype User Interface
Note: Interface left intentionally blank to increase user focus on terms.
Results
Results: Helpful and Satisfying
• 19/20 found the interface satisfying or extremely satisfying• 15/20 reported the system helpful
“I liked the system a lot.. and I like the filters a lot!”
“I would click on laparoscopy just because even though I’m not sure what that is, I saw that word here and I think it might be like a term, the actual name of the procedure”
“I actually like what they're trying to do, to get similar searches, like if you haven't thought of something”
“It gives you an idea of what it is that you need to look out for”
Page Views - Answers
Results Viewed Answer Sources
109
67
78
33
28
30
1
Terms Clicked
Medically trained usersLay-users
0Delicious (social media) tags selected
Controlled vocabulary to support health IR
Controlled Vocabulary
Participants in this study preferred controlled vocabulary terms (MeSH) over social tags (Delicious), suggesting that there is some “basic level” of metadata understood by lay-users. - Medical librarians should investigate which terms in their metadata best guide consumers, and visualizations for public health search.
Future Interface…
Michael ZarroIMLS Fellow, Drexel University [email protected]
Xia LinProfessor, Drexel University [email protected]