We have spent a considerable amount of effort recently really trying to understand our users. We’ve done similar exercises in the past, but never in the depth. The results have fascinated me!

Breakdown of searches – professionals/public

  • 69% – searches by health professionals and associated groups
  • 31% – searches by patient/public

Breakdown of professionals

  • 25% – hospital doctors
  • 18% – GPs/family practitioners
  • 19% – nurses
  • 2% – pharmacists
  • 21% – other health professionals
  • 15% – information specialists/librarians

If we translate that into a typical month’s worth of searches (530,000)

  • 164,300 – patients
  • 91,425 – hospital doctors
  • 65,826 – GPs/family practitioners
  • 69,483 – nurses
  • 7,314 – pharmacists
  • 76,797 – other health professionals
  • 54,855 – information specialists/librarians

Where the users come from

  • 38% – UK
  • 29% – USA
  • 6% – Canada
  • 5% – Australia
  • 3% – Spain
  • 2% – India
  • 17% – Other

Search success

  • 13% – find the information they wanted all the time
  • 53% – find the information they wanted most of the time
  • 19% – finds the information about half the time
  • 15% – find the information less than half the time

The last set of figures (search success) has given me the most pleasure. We finished our analysis the same time as Microsoft released user satisfaction figures for their Live search engine. They report, “We found that 46 percent of all searches are not satisfied and that’s a large number. And 54 percent is either fully or partially satisfied.”

All that is left to say is a big thank you to the hundreds of users who responded to our call for help and taking the time to complete the questionnaire.