Information-Seeking Strategies in Medicine Queries: A Clinical Eye-Tracking Study with Gaze-Cued Retrospective Think-Aloud Protocol

ABSTRACT

Background: Medicines are increasingly purchased online, yet little is known regarding the ocular information-seeking behavior with medicine queries in search engines. A share of pharmacies found via search engines operate unlicensed and sell prescription-only medicines without a prescription. This study aimed to investigate how search engine users distinguish between genuine and falsified sources of information in terms of unlicensed and licensed online pharmacies in the case of medicine queries.

Methods: Eye-tracking of search tasks (transactional, navigational, informational and two limited results) in a Google search engine environment with retrospective gaze-cued think aloud protocol. Purposive sample of N = 50 across three hospitals and one general practitioner. Results: Discovery of a trichotomy of ocular search strategies based on the inclusion or exclusion of URLs in the information-seeking process. Finding of dissonance to existing studies related to fixation duration of search engine result page (SERP) elements. Discovery of an addition to information foraging theory (IFT): proximal cues are, in environments with non-credible information, used in both positive and negative ways.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Acuity-ETS and Tobii for lending the eye-tracking device and to the Oxford Internet Institute for providing the support during this study.

Funding

TM was funded during this study at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, by the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, Foundation De Korinthiërs, Dr. Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, VSB Fonds and KAS Bank.

Additional information

Funding

TM was funded during this study at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, by the Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, Foundation De Korinthiërs, Dr. Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, VSB Fonds and KAS Bank.

Notes on contributors

Tim Muntinga

Tim Muntinga conducted this research as part of his MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He has multiple years of consulting background in digital strategy, user experience research, and digital marketing, and he has a particular interest in the (digital) health intersection.

Greg Taylor

Greg Taylor is an economist whose research focuses on the economics of online markets and of markets for technology goods more generally. Special topics of interest include the search engine and online advertising industries, platform markets, consumer search behavior and price comparison services, the attention economy, and online intermediary bias.