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From the Editor
This is the Spring 2006 issue of NI News - the quarterly free newsletter from the site Nursing Informatics.com.
This publication offers articles, news, product and systems analyses, tech resources and dialogue on global nursing informatics issues, discoveries and theory. We will provide a comprehensive view of informatics in practice, education, research and administration.
If you would like to receive a regular copy, please go HERE to subscribe.
June Kaminski
Read the OJNI -
The Online Journal of
Nursing Informatics
Go to OJNI
As Editor in Charge of Virtual Nursing Practice and Culture, I invite you to submit your research and other papers related to using the online environment as a nursing context for OJNI publication.
 Canadian?
Join the CNIA!
As President-Elect, I also invite you to join the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association at cnia.ca
Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics
Volume 1 No 1 launched April 1, 2006.
An active call for papers, essays, reviews, columns, or other creative or practical work related to the world of nursing informatics is out - why not contribute?
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Designing High Quality
Health Sites
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As a health professional who is devoted to nursing informatics, I have spent years designing and teaching others how to design high quality, ethical, appealing and user-friendly health related web sites. To break into this niche, there are a few key considerations to incorporate into your marketing approach.
Ensure Ethics and Usability
It's a given fact. More and more people are turning to the web for information about a multitude of health topics, including researching health conditions, finding health services, and ordering health products. There is a lot of money to be made by designers who know how to attract health care professionals and health organizations to their services. Designing a health site is much like designing any other professional site - on the surface. But particular care is necessary to ensure that content is totally reliable and carefully referenced, not to mention 100% accurate. Ethics are a big issue with health care sites: extensive care needs to be taken to ensure accuracy, credibility, user confidentiality, respect for privacy and freedom from plagiarism.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has an excellent Usability Guide for helping designers and health organizations plan and design usable, useful and accessibile web sites and user interfaces. The authors define usability as "Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system — whether a Web site, a software application, mobile technology, or any user-operated device." They also point out key factors that ensure usability.
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- Ease of Learning - can users intuitively learn how to navigate the site without much effort?
- Efficiency of Use - once they have grasp the layout, can a user accomplish tasks quickly on the site. For instance, do they know where to click to contact you?
- Memorability - on a second or subsequent visit, will a user remember how to navigate the site easily?
- Error frequency and severity - how many errors do users make as they attempt to use the site? How serious are these errors? Is error recovery easy or difficult?
- Subjective Satistfaction - how much does the user like using the site? Is it appealing and user-friendly?
eHealthcare offers evaluation services called their Strategic eHealthcare Web Site Evaluation Service based on the comprehensive and extensive methodology used in their eHealthcare Leadership Awards program.
Go to News on page 2 |
The full article is available online at:
http://www.nursing-informatics.com/healthsites.html
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