Design and Usability of Interactive User Profiles for Online Health Communities
This work takes an in-depth look at how people in on-line communities can tap the rich sources of expertise and compassion represented by other community members who are facing (or have surmounted) similar health challenges.
The effort is lent especially noteworthy resonance, and depth, and practical impact, by the authors’ partnership with CancerConnect.com, a web site that serves as a resource and social network for cancer patients (and their caregivers).
Such connections are vital for patients—who are rarely medical experts themselves—when they are suddenly forced to navigate challenging health issues where the mentoring and support of “someone like me” can have a major impact.
But first the patient must actually find, and engage with, precisely the right person in such a community, which is where the design of Health Interest Profiles come into play. The authors therefore consider, in depth, key considerations for the design of such profiles, which surface the topics and activity related to other members in such communities.
Along the way, the authors surface many great insights that lend a greater appreciation of the difficulties this poses, while also naturally leading one to envision interesting new hybrid designs that might pave the way for further progress on this important problem.
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2903718).