title: Health websites: accessibility and usability for American sign language users.
abstract: To date, there have been efforts toward creating better health information access for Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users. However, the usability of websites with access to health information in ASL has not been evaluated. Our article focuses on the usability of four health websites that include ASL videos. We seek to obtain ASL users' perspectives on the navigation of these ASL-accessible websites, finding the health information that they needed, and perceived ease of understanding ASL video content. ASL users (n = 32) were instructed to find specific information on four ASL-accessible websites, and answered questions related to (a) navigation to find the task, (b) website usability, and (c) ease of understanding ASL video content for each of the four websites. Participants also gave feedback on what they would like to see in an ASL health library website, including the benefit of added captioning and/or signer model to medical illustration of health videos. Participants who had lower health literacy had greater difficulty in finding information on ASL-accessible health websites. This article also describes the participants' preferences for an ideal ASL-accessible health website, and concludes with a discussion on the role of accessible websites in promoting health literacy in ASL users.
authors.affiliation: a Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science , Rochester Institute of Technology.
authors.forename: Poorna
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kushalnagar
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Naturale
authors.forename: Raylene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Paludneviciene
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Werfel
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Doolittle
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: DeCaro
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012813:Sign Language; D014481:United States; D014743:Videotape Recording; D055815:Young Adult