ABSTRACT
Online symptom checkers (OSC) are widely used intelligent systems in health contexts such as primary care, remote healthcare, and epidemic control. OSCs use algorithms such as machine learning to facilitate self-diagnosis and triage based on symptoms input by healthcare consumers. However, intelligent systems' lack of transparency and comprehensibility could lead to unintended consequences such as misleading users, especially in high-stakes areas such as healthcare. In this paper, we attempt to enhance diagnostic transparency by augmenting OSCs with explanations. We first conducted an interview study (N=25) to specify user needs for explanations from users of existing OSCs. Then, we designed a COVID-19 OSC that was enhanced with three types of explanations. Our lab-controlled user study (N=20) found that explanations can significantly improve user experience in multiple aspects. We discuss how explanations are interwoven into conversation flow and present implications for future OSC designs.
ABSTRACT
Crisis informatics research has examined geographically bounded crises, such as natural or man-made disasters, identifying the critical role of local and hyper-local information focused on one geographic area in crisis communication. The COVID-19 pandemic represents an understudied kind of crisis that simultaneously hits locales across the globe, engendering an emergent form of crisis communication, which we term cross-local communication. Cross-local communication is the exchange of crisis information between geographically dispersed locales to facilitate local crisis response. To unpack this notion, we present a qualitative study of an online migrant community of overseas Taiwanese who supported fellow Taiwanese from afar. We detail four distinctive types of cross-local communication: situational updates, risk communication, medical consultation, and coordination. We discuss how the current pandemic situation brings new understandings to crisis informatics and online health community literature, and what role digital technologies could play in supporting cross-local communication. © 2021 ACM.