Consumer Perspectives on Quality Attributes in Evaluating Health Websites

Healthcare consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet for health information. Health website sponsors and developers are challenged to ensure high quality to satisfy the spectrum of site visitors. Yet, research does not seem to provide needed guidance from the perspective of the healthcare consumer. In response, this study provides a taxonomy of website quality attributes and explores differences in ratings of the importance of 15 quality attributes of health websites from healthcare consumers. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were deployed to collect the data.