Key errors of the medical Runet
Natalia Diakonova, expert, columnist
Internet medicine does not see the user, and the user does not see Internet medicine - this is the conclusion reached by the specialists of the specialized medical Internet agency Med Craft (http://www.medcraft.ru /), who conducted their research in the medical Runet. As a result, they have prepared a material that gives an idea of the typical errors of medical resources and gives an answer to the three most pressing questions:
• what does the network user want from medical sites,
• why medical websites "don't work",
• what they should be in order for the visitor to want to use them.
Who wants what from medical resourcesMed Craft experts found out that more than 80% of the medical Runet audience is primarily looking for background information in it, and only 20% are ready to seek help (this usually happens on the basis of previously received recommendations or information from the press).
More than 50% of the audience are people aged 18-35 years or more, 70% of them are women. 80% prefer to turn to paid medicine (but older people often look for resources of state medical institutions). More than 70%, for various reasons, do not trust information on the Web, and also have no idea what brands exist in the medical industry and among the resources of the medical Runet.
If other industries on the Web have their own "key" thematic resources, then it is difficult to single them out in the medical Runet, since in the total mass this is a huge number of narrow-profile sites aimed at different audiences, often with radically opposite interests: doctors, patients, buyers, just users interested in medicine. There are very few common sites where their preferences and interests overlap and are guided by experts.
Today, a typical user's contact with a medical website can be represented as follows: he requests through a particular search engine the name (of a disease, a drug ...) and gets either to general non-medical resources, or to popular or narrow-profile medical sites. At the same time, the user has no guidelines for choosing a particular resource as a reliable source of information, a place for consultation, purchase of goods, services, an appointment with a doctor, and so on.
Rating systems in the medical Runet are quite relative. In such conditions, the user has no guarantees that the information provided by medical resources is reliable (no one is responsible for it). There are no hints that would help to figure out "who is who" in the medical Internet, while other sites and online consultations often "hide" not specialists, but sellers of panaceas from "fashionable problems" like obesity and cellulite.
As a result of this state of affairs, the user in the medical Runet often feels deceived, useless to anyone with their questions and problems. He is not disposed to make contact with specialists unknown to him, and is simply unable to make a decision to whom he should turn.
Why domestic medical websites don't work as they shouldMedical Runet is represented mainly by three types of sites, – says Stanislav Bogatyuk, researcher of the medical Runet and head of the Web Optima – Med Craft project.
The first type is information sites (publishers, companies, sanatoriums, as well as combined reference resources – archives of materials, bulletin boards, catalogs, etc.). The second type is online stores (medicines, goods, services, books, publications, medical equipment, software). The third is the websites of clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centers, and private hospitals. And all of them are becoming more and more similar to each other in terms of their set of functions, services and content – medical publications keep their online store on the site, online stores have a news column, corporate websites of clinics open online consultations, introduce sections for publishing press releases of companies.
In modern conditions, a medical website should be super-technological, according to Med Craft specialists. And first of all – in such basic positions as communications, graphic design, software, information content, user convenience. The role of these positions is almost equivalent, since they ensure the effective operation of the site as a marketing tool.
In the process of analyzing more than 100 medical resources taken from the Yandex catalog, as well as based on the practice of optimizing various sites, Med Craft experts identified key errors in the above-mentioned five positions.
1. CommunicationsMost medical sites do not have them, they are often "hidden", narrowed, depersonalized.
In Internet medicine, communications are built in the same way as in life, that is, they are almost absent, and if they are present, they are quite frankly focused only on narrow commercial tasks. Therefore, getting to most medical sites, the user is as lonely as opening the door of a local polyclinic: there is not enough information and there are no people to answer questions, or you need to wait in line for these answers. Here you can get paid services right away: an operational consultation is provided, and an appointment is being made – this is all just presented on the websites of private medical institutions.
Feedback in the form of contact details on websites is often intentionally "hidden", it needs to be searched for, and if it is possible to find an email address or a letter icon, rarely anyone responds to it. Trying to find the "owners" through a forum or consultation, the user may again encounter a "broken signboard". Viewing most medical resources gives the impression that there is no one behind them. And the slogan "everything for a person, everything for a client" (patient) does not yet work either in life or within the medical Runet.
Recommendations – against the general background, those who will make sure that the site is "residential" can easily win, contacts are everywhere and in a prominent place, as well as information about the authors (owners), the site quickly responded to requests, and the user (patient) knew who to contact and on what issue. Sometimes, in addition to everything, it is useful for managers or leading specialists of a company (clinic, store) to open personal forums, diaries (blogs) for informal communication, which attract more attention than official channels. It's like in life – we need to know who we are addressing!
2. Graphic designFor the most part, it is of the same type and poor, or complex, distracting from the content.
The appearance of most domestic medical websites is archaic solutions made in similar blue–blue tones, almost indistinguishable from each other and therefore not memorable. Outdated, unreadable fonts prevail, illustrations clumsily borrowed from foreign photo banks, where instead of domestic ones you can see doctors in American uniforms and dark-skinned patients. Plus, the poor organization of text blocks is a jumble in which the eye cannot find what is needed. After viewing some medical sites, there is a feeling that you have visited a typical polyclinic or hospital – everyone is similar to each other. But a person chooses a place to address (both in life and on the Web) according to certain signs that are essential for him. Psychologists should have known about it, and doctors should have used it. There is such a useful scientific direction as video ecology, which proves that an illiterate visual environment, in particular, on the monitor screen (a certain color "rippling" gamma, monotonous design without pronounced elements, "bad" straight and small fonts, etc.) – leads to serious visual pathologies, contributes to eye fatigue, myopia, causes the manifestation of "computer vision syndrome", which, according to WHO, is experienced by over 75% of users.
Recommendations – when developing websites, rely on the creation of individual design solutions with pronounced visual elements (accents), created taking into account both the psychology of perception, in particular, colors, and the tasks of the resource, the image of the company's brand. At the same time, it is important not to overload the site, leave free spaces, and translate some of the information into drawings and illustrations. And they should not be artificial and borrowed (so as not to cause distrust), too frank and frightening (so as not to force visitors to leave), excessively abstract (so as not to complicate the perception of the text). To promote a clinic or a treatment method, for example, it is better to organize a real photo shoot with a certain plot, and quite correct, taking into account the fact that visitors and even children often visit narrowly professional sites…
3. SoftwareThe medical Runet abounds with sites that are simple in their functions and services, which are more appropriate for private specialists and small companies, and this is yesterday's day of the Network.
It should be replaced by more complex sites that have a whole range of services. The solution of these tasks is possible thanks to the use of web 2.0 technologies in the creation of medical resources.
Recommendations – web 2.0 technologies, according to Med Craft experts, will allow Medrunet to take a step forward. This is creating the basis for a new level of communication with visitors – for example, ensuring the work of future online clinics capable of performing the function of a cyber doctor who diagnoses and treats people at a distance (technologies for such work on the Network are already being developed by both domestic and foreign specialists). New technologies will also help to create resources that will reduce the time spent by existing medical institutions on many processes, including patient recording, document management or the process of outpatient treatment of patients: the doctor will be able to monitor and adjust the patient's treatment between his visits, communicating with him in the "personal account" on the site, where no one else can look. It is also possible to create an online system for performing complex operations with the participation of the world's largest specialists in real time (similar facts have already taken place in medical practice).
4. Information contentOn Runet medical sites, news and texts are rarely updated, are not edited, are not specially prepared, are not filtered for the audience, do not work for specific tasks.
This error is quite common and is supported by pluggable news streams from various thematic feeds, which allows you not to engage in special administration and maintenance of sites. Very often, people who have nothing to do with medicine are engaged in filling medical sites, as a result of which the medRunet is overloaded with poor-quality translations, in which it is often simply impossible to understand the meaning of the message.
Information errors of websites can also include random selection of news, overloading of pages with non-core and too large texts, quoting information without specifying sources and authors. The lack of references to the source often leads to the fact that "newspaper ducks" have been roaming around the medical Internet for years.
It is common to use medical and scientific slang in texts or a complex academic style of presentation, special terminology (without explanations and links to dictionaries) and vice versa – the news is oversimplified. There are also grammatical errors, repetitions of content, direct inconsistency of the promoted topics (for example, the site sells medical equipment and at the same time offers metal products).
A fairly common phenomenon is the publication of messages published up to five (!) years ago, but with the words "yesterday" or "last week".
Recommendations – information on news sites should be related to the topic of the resource and support it. At the same time, the user should be able to leave their comments and messages checked by the admin, which will help to maintain the resource. In addition, it is necessary to know that the information content of the site is an important strategic moment of any company's work and a very responsible form of corporate communications, so it should be prepared and directed by specialists (PR technologists, press secretaries).
Only in this case there is an opportunity to "take into account" and mitigate, for example, an unexpectedly negative attitude in society towards medicines or treatment methods. It is not for nothing that after publications about fake medicines, the flow of online pharmacy buyers has sharply decreased. After the "revelations" of dietary supplements, there was an outflow of visitors from the relevant resources…
5. Usability – the convenience of websitesMost of the services created for users in the medical Runet are very limited and are more declared than confirmed in practice: for example, there are often non-working forms of communication with the site administration.
The functions of most medical resources require correction: sometimes you need to try very hard to order products by filling out a questionnaire; to post information, you need to go through a complex registration, etc.
Recommendations – in order to understand how convenient the site is for the user and adjust it, it is enough to conduct a simple audit, as the managers of ordinary stores do today, sending "fake buyers" to check the work of their managers. I went in, talked and saw everything right away. According to the set of services, it is useful to include in the structure of sites such sections as "Vacancies", "Surveys", "Choose a doctor", "Visitor responses", etc., but it is important to remember: there are no universal solutions in the web sphere, a specific solution must be found by specialists for each task.
The main conclusion from the analysis is that medicine on the Web should correspond to its purpose, improve its forms of work on the Internet in order to serve people, following its main principle and commandment: do no harm!
Research materials are provided by specialists of the Web Optima – Med Craft project
http://www.medcraft.ru/
(495) 644-00-07, 589-66-61
info [at] medcraft.ru
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru15.05.2008