Interactivity, Changeability, and Non-Textual Content of Websites of Iranian Hospital Libraries

With the increasing role of the Internet as one of the most important sources of information on the one hand, and the enhancement of its usability on the other, it is necessary for web designers and developers to be familiar with the criteria that make a website usable. Therefore, this paper aimed to provide knowledge about the interactivity, changeability, and non-textual content of websites of Iranian hospital libraries. In an applied research, the interactivity and changeability of online libraries of Iranian general and specialty hospitals were evaluated. The tool for data collection was a 21-item researcher-made explanatory checklist based on the review of the available literature. The websites of 24 hospital libraries were evaluated by the checklist. In order to analyze research findings, descriptive (frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics were used. All analyses were performed in SPSS and Microsoft Excel. Overall, 38% of both general and specialty hospitals were committed to interactivity and changeability criteria. Non-textual content criteria were met by 26% and 24% of the websites of libraries of general and specialty hospitals, respectively. Since only less than half of the required criteria were met, strategies need to be employed to improve the process of web designing.