An Alternative to Print-Centric Design for Online Health Literacy: The Redevelopment of a Cancer Information Portal

Abstract

Despite the increasing use of online health literacy resources, scholars and practitioners assess Web sites based on readability measures such as sentence length, word choice, and other ''print-centric'' features to the exclusion of features unique to online media. In this article, we offer an alternative approach that accounts for multiple modes of communication and non-linear arrangement-features that characterize online media. To demonstrate this approach, we detail a recent project to redesign a cancer patient web portal. Included in our discussion of the project is a heuristic tool for designing web navigation as well as detailed examples of reworded content.