Designing Online Health Information: Project Management and User Centered Design Processes Used to Develop Cdc's Cross-Cutting Topic Sites On Human Papillomavirus (HPV)

Background:  Effective communication planning is essential to design online health information for audiences.   CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, STD, Viral Hepatitis and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) launched a sexual health website on Human Papillomavirus (HPV).  Designing online health information for multiple audiences required a sophisticated approach to creating a “multi-faceted” topic site.  This user-centered design process involved taking advantage of evidence-based approaches to tailoring information to audiences who have differing reasons for seeking the information and other attributes.   

Program background:  This project involved the collaborative development with members of the HPV Workgroup, comprised of subject matter experts and health communicators representing five Centers across CDC.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  To identify our users, their online behaviors and their health information needs, user analysis stemmed from three sources of information.  Site traffic data revealed 942,000 page views between January and August 2009 and analyzed for most visited content, page view data, and top referring sites to the HPV content.  Primary health information needs of male and female audiences were compiled based upon 22,570 inquiries to the CDC-INFO Call Center and a qualitative analysis of 160 emails.  Research on the informational needs of targeted audiences provided additional insight into negative stigma associated with certain aspects of HPV among  primary audiences. Content strategy was another key component to the communication strategy.   A number of tools and templates were created to accomplish the site’s health communication objectives.   Management approvals, key subject matter experts and health communication staff were all managed through a Key Stakeholder Matrix.   Consumer audiences and their informational needs/wants (context-of-use) were detailed through a Topline Health Message and User Scenario Matrix. The CDC HPV website has been viewed over 2 million times (2,179,173) since its launch last year.  According to the ForeSee American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) the site has a satisfaction score of 84, which is 4 points higher than the satisfaction score of CDC.gov site during the same time period. Most respondents indicated that they were likely to return (score 9.2) and recommend the site to someone else (score  9.1). ACSI data has also indicated the site is heavily frequented by consumers interested in health issues and 73% are likely or very likely to make a positive health change after visiting the site. As a result of the launch of the HPV website, other CDC-topic pages views have also increased.. For instance, CDC’s Cervical Cancer page views have increased 18% since the launch of the HPV website and 7% of traffic came from the HPV website.

Conclusions:  The approach to the redesign successfully involved a strategic user-centered design process, combining evidence from several sources of information.  The communication planning was facilitated by several innovative project management tools.

Implications for research and/or practice:  These tools and strategies were successfully applied to the creation of a second sexual health site for Gay and Bisexual Men.  Public health practice can benefit from customized tools and templates and evidence-based approaches to design online health information.