Form Approved
   OMB No. 0990-0281
   Exp. Date XX/XX/XX12
MODERATOR’S GUIDE
ODPHP Healthy People Web Site Redesign

1.  Introduction (5 minutes)
Welcome to our online focus group. My name is ______________.  I work for a research company that is helping the federal government test the redesign of one of their web sites.  I’ll be moderating the discussion.  The purpose of this discussion is to find out your opinions; there are no right or wrong answers, and everyone’s opinion is valuable.  I may ask you a lot of questions but I’m not trying to get you to say one thing or another thing. Much of the time, you should feel free to speak up when you have something to say.  At times, I’ll ask a question and we’ll take turns answering. Throughout I’d like you to wait until whoever’s talking is finished so we can hear from everyone and so my colleague can take notes on everyone’s contribution.  When you speak I’d like you to say your name before you start talking so we can keep track of who is who.  If you don’t have much to say, I might call on you to see if you agree or disagree with what others are saying.   Everything you say will be kept confidential. We’ll tell our client what we learned from the focus groups, but we will not say who said what or tell them your names.  
Before we get started I want to be sure that everyone has logged into the internet connection that we sent to you.  We will use this to jointly view portions of the web site that we want to get your feedback on.  Are there any questions about what we’re doing?  
The organization sponsoring this focus group is interested in making the Healthy People 2020 web site more relevant and accessible to the public, particularly to health professionals and organizations that may use them for planning purposes.  You have been selected to participate in this focus group because you are working as a health professional at the community, local or state level.  
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Let’s take a moment to find out who everyone is.  Please tell us your name, where you are from and your profession.  Also please tell us the most interesting health fact that you have learned recently.
(after completed introductions)  Thank you everyone.  Okay, let’s begin by discussing your current use of health information web sites.
A.	Current Use of Health Information Web sites
1.	What web sites do you rely on for your personal health information?
2.	What web sites do you use for information you want to share with colleagues, patients, students or the general public?
3.	Are there any other web sites that you use for professional purposes?
4.	When you go to a web site, what are you looking for? (probe for facts, community activities, resource links, program planning strategies, downloadables (posters, handouts, etc.))
5.	Have you ever tried to find information tailored to the specific needs of your community?  What did you find and how did you use it?
6.	Have you ever used a community-based planning tool?  (If so, was this online or in print?)  How did you use the tool?  (probe for working with other organizations, partners, development of community-wide strategy, etc.)
7.	How successful have you been in developing community-wide strategies?  What contributes or detracts from this success?

B.	Use of Healthy People Objectives

Now I would like to focus the discussion on the use of Healthy People Objectives.  Is everybody familiar with these objectives?

1.	Have you used or referred to Healthy People objectives in planning activities?  Why or why not?
2.	How do you use the objectives?  (If you haven’t used them, how do you think that they might be helpful to you?)
3.	What could the federal government do to make the objectives more accessible or useful for you?
4.	Do you ever connect with other communities or organizations to develop joint programs or to compare resources and ideas?
5.	How could the Healthy People objectives help you in working with other communities or organizations?
6.	How could the Healthy People framework and goals help you in working with other communities or organizations?
7.	Would you be interested in using a web site that is focused on the new Healthy People2020 objectives?  What would you want to see on such a web site?  (probe for content areas and tools)

C.	Reaction to Redesigned Web site

The federal government is in the process of redesigning the Healthy People Web site and is interested in getting some feedback from you on potential designs and site tools.  So, please look at the screen now on your computer.  (Show landing page)

1.	What is your first reaction to this page (thinking about the format and the feel of the page)?  (probe for design elements including colors, pictures, not details of the content on the page)
2.	Now look a little closer at the page and think as if you were using the page.  Do you like where different elements are placed on the page?  (review some specific elements on the page).
3.	Thinking about navigating through this site, let’s look at the navigation bar.  First, is it obvious to you how to use the navigation bar?
4.	Let’s look at each navigation button separately….what would expect to find if you clicked on (go through each button).
5.	Now let’s look at what is actually planned to be behind each button.  (Show content of first button).  Do you think that the label used for this navigation button is appropriate for these content areas?  Do you have any other suggestions that might make it more clear to the user?  REPEAT for each button.
6.	If you wanted to get to a community health planning tool, what search terms would you use if you were coming from outside the web site.  What terms if you were already on the web site?

D.	Healthy People Web Site Community Health Planning Tool

Now I would like to show you a specific health planning tool that is being developed for use on the Healthy People web site.  The purpose of this tool is to provide health professionals with a way of developing targeted strategies to address specific issues affecting their communities.  The tool would allow users to input some specific target population characteristics and to select the areas of interest from a list of topics based on the healthy people objectives.  The output will provide information and resources that you can use for your planning purposes.  Let’s look at the prototype of the tool that has been developed.  Please look at the screen on your computers.  (Walk through the different layers of the web site as the discussion progresses.)

Let’s look at the first screen:

1.	Is it obvious that you have to login to use this page?  Would this deter anyone from using this tool? 

Now let’s go to the next page:  Show description of tool and 1st question.
2.	When you read the description of the page, what do you expect to have to do and to get out of the site?  
3.	Is this enough information to interest you in continuing?
4.	Looking at the first question, are there any other settings that you would add?
5.	Is this page clearly presented and organized?  Please let me know if you have any specific suggestions.

Now let’s go to the next page…
6.	Are there any other target demographics that you would want to have included?
7.	Is this page clearly presented?

Now let’s go to the next page…
8.	Is this page clear?  Is anything missing?
9.	Before we move to the output page, please tell me what type of output you anticipate having available from this tool.

Now let’s go to the output page…
10.	What are your first impressions of this page?
11.	Do you think that the information on it is easily accessible (appearance, format, clarity, ease of use)?
12.	Do you understand that the list under the report index refers to segments on this page?

Let’s look at one of the reports….
13.	How would you use the information included in this report?  Would you download the external resources?
14.	Is it helpful to have the descriptive information on top (Focus area, etc.) about the report?  What about the rationale and description?
15.	How would you use the list of Healthy People Objectives in your planning process?
16.	Is it helpful to have the Healthy People Objectives included in the output?
17.	On a scale of 1 to 5, how useful would this output be to your planning processes?
18.	Is there additional information that you would like to see included with the output? 
19.	Before we move to discussing how you might use the tool, let’s think about this tool and go back to thinking about how you might access it from inside or outside the site.  Knowing what you do now about the type of data that you will have available through the tool, what type of search terms would you use to get to the tool?
20.	Do you think that the categories and specific data elements that we have included in the input form are what you need to get the output that would help you the most?  (Go back through the input forms for their review).
21.	Is it better to use multiple or single categories?

Thinking now about the whole tool…
22.	Would you use it independently or with other organizations?  How would you use it for collaborations?
23.	What would your goals be in using the tool?
24.	Who would you tell about this tool (for their purposes)?  (probe for type of health professionals).
25.	Is there something that you would like to add to the tool’s capabilities?

Are there any additional comments on all that we have discussed today?

Thank you for participating in this focus group.  Your insight will be useful as the web site and tool are developed.