초록

Abstract

Physicians have information needs related to academic research and clinical practice but encounter difficulties seeking appropriate medical resources and information. The goal of this study is to develop a search system to support Korean physicians’ information needs. To access sources to meet the identified need, in-depth interviews were conducted, and MediSearching, a new search system, was developed accordingly. To verify its usefulness and to obtain users’ suggestions, interviews were conducted and feedback was solicited via collected test searches. The initial set of interviews indicated that physicians’ information needs and search behaviors differed by type of hospital and clinical department. Physicians in university hospitals with a greater need for research materials searched for academic articles, whereas physicians in specialty hospitals or primary care clinics with a stronger need for materials related to clinical practice asked their colleagues for information. Consequently, MediSearching was designed to satisfy both groups’ needs, and the test search provided useful search results compared with existing services. Korean physicians have previously had to repeat their search process on separate sites that provide different services according to type of information and search method. MediSearching may reduce this inconvenience and add documents in various formats and languages.

초록

본 연구의 목적은 고령층을 위한 웹 사이트의 정보 구조를 조직화 체계와 레이블링 체계의 측면에서 평가하는데 있다. 본 연구의 목적을 달성하기 위하여 고령자들이 비교적 많이 이용하는 국내 웹 사이트 한 곳(네이버)을 선정하고, 실험참가자들은 주어진 세 가지의 정보탐색 과제를 수행한 후, 사후 설문과 필요한 경우 추가적인 인터뷰를 통하여 총 74명의 실험 데이터를 수집하였다. 수집된 데이터는 SPSS Ver.20으로 통계분석을 실시했다. 연구 결과를 요약하면, 실험대상으로 선정한 웹 사이트는 정보 구조의 조직화 측면에서 실험참가자들에게 긍정적인 평가를 받았는데, 특히 콘텐츠의 체계적인 주제별 분류와 시간순이나 연대순 브라우징에 대하여 긍정적이었다. 또한 실험참가자들은 단어 레이블보다 아이콘 레이블을 더 잘 이해하는 것으로 파악되었고, 이는 실험참가자 개인의 학습정도에 따라 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났다.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the organization system and the labeling system of information architecture of a website for the elderly. To achieve this aims, we selected a representative website, i.e., Naver, and the participants were conducted given three types of search tasks using their own information literacy skills and they were answered to the questionnaire and an additional interview, if necessary. A total of 74 valid data were collected through the experiment, and we analyzed the data using SPSS Ver. 20. It revealed that Naver received a positive evaluation in the organization system aspect, particularly its systematic subject categorization and chronological browsing mechanisms. Old adults were preferred the icon-based labeling than the text-based labeling system, and showed a significant difference among their academic backgrounds.