Effects of website interactivity on skin cancer-related intentions and user experience: Factorial randomized experiment

Abstract

Background: Digital media technologies provide users with the ability to interact with content and to receive information based on their preferences and engagement. Objective: We used skin cancer and sun protection as a health topic to explore how modality interactivity, interface tools that afford users greater activity, resulting in greater depth and breadth of mentally representing and experiencing mediated content, and message interactivity, the extent to which the system allows users to exchange messages back and forth on health websites, influenced users' attitudes, knowledge, behavioral intentions, and experience. Methods: We employed a 2×2 (modality interactivity: High vs low; message interactivity: High vs low) between-subject online experiment for which 4 websites were created. Participants (n=293) were recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned into to 1 of 4 conditions. After browsing the website, participants completed an online survey regarding their experience and cognitive perceptions. General linear models and path analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: Both modality interactivity (P=.001) and message interactivity (P