ICML 9

9º Congreso Mundial de Información en Salud y Bibliotecas

Salvador, Bahia - Brasil, 20 a 23 de septiembre de 2005

BVS4

4a. Reunión de Coordinación Regional de la BVS

19 y 20 de septiembre de 2005

P90 - Implementing improved HealthInsite search functionality for consumers

HealthInsite is the Australian government’s Internet gateway to reliable health information for Australians. HealthInsite links to around 12,000 information resources on the websites of its approved information partners. The site uses Verity’s Information Server as its search engine and makes extensive use of metadata for both user and system searching. HealthInsite has two main search options: a simple text Quick Search and an Advanced Search. Users are given a Refine Search option from search results pages.
An analysis of user searching behaviour (both in general and on HealthInsite) was conducted to identify what search functionality works well for consumers and how HealthInsite’s search options might be modified to better meet their needs. The team then commenced a user search interface redesign process in 2004. The redesign aims to overcome the issue identified in the analysis, provide more user-friendly search filtering and display options, and make better use of the metadata elements associa ted with the information resources included in the HealthInsite database.
This poster paper will demonstrate how the new search interfaces and results displays have been designed to overcome the issues identified in the analysis of user searching behaviour,  how they make use of the metadata elements, and what work is still to be done.