Usability Evaluation of a Modern Multilingual MeSH Browser

Abstract

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is one of the most important vocabularies for information retrieval in medical research. It enables fast and reliable retrieval of research on PubMed/MEDLINE, the world's largest body of medical literature. The original English version of the thesaurus can be accessed via a MeSH Browser developed by the NLM. Recently, a multilingual MeSH Browser was proposed to enable usage across languages. To improve upon the original system, a new user interface (UI) was developed using contemporary web design frameworks in combination with principles from cognitive science. It aims to simplify access for medical professionals and increase overall usability. Evaluating such design improvements continually is necessary to quantify the possible positive impact for online systems in medical research. This study therefore directly compares the resulting system to the NLM Browser, using an established online questionnaire. Results show significant improvements in content and navigation as well as overall user satisfaction, while offering feedback for future improvements. This underlines the benefits of employing contemporary web design in terms of usability and user satisfaction.

Keywords: Medical Informatics Applications; Medical Subject Headings; User-Computer Interface.