Formative Research Findings from the National Cancer Institute on How to Design Web Sites to Meet the Cancer Information Needs of Latino Audiences

Latinos/Hispanics living in the United States experience higher cancer incidence and mortality rates that lead to health disparities. Latinos are one of the fastest growing Internet audiences that will reach 16 million users in 2007. Over the past year, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has conducted formative research to design a linguistically and culturally appropriate Spanish-language version of the cancer.gov Web site. Identifying the cancer education needs of Latinos who use the Internet to find cancer-related health information was a research priority. This project reports the results of semi-structured in-depth interviews (N=10) with Federal government agency Web developers who manage Spanish language Web sites to inform the design of the new cancer.gov Spanish site. Information on developing Spanish Web sites in the areas of site development, content management, language and translation, Web site structure, and evaluation was collected to identify best practices and lessons learned. In addition, four iterative focus groups were conducted with monolingual and bilingual English and Spanish Internet users to identify the basic elements needed to create a culturally relevant online experience. The basic elements include creating and organizing category labels, as well as classifying graphic design preferences and functionality. Research findings suggest that cancer information for Spanish-speaking Web site visitors requires targeted bilingual and bicultural navigation approaches, user-centered organization, content prioritization and information architecture structure.