Readability and Speed of Multispecialty Private Hospitals Websites in India: an Assessment Study

Abstract

In the hyper connected, frenzied new millennium world, with change as constant, it became inevitable to embrace technology to mitigate—at least to some extent—the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment and make sense of changing world dynamics. Post pandemic as VUCA descriptors gave way to BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear and Incompressible), DNA level insights into stakeholder’s psychology of business has become non negotiable imperative. This first touch point, is most often the website’s landing page that determines which level of AIDA (Attention, -Interest-Desire- Action) model consumers will go from there. In a complex sector like healthcare with a wide disparity of cognitive abilities between service providers and seekers--readability, comprehension and speed of website interaction offer the competitive advantage that can be differentiator for a hospital’s preference. This paper attempts to assess the readability and speed of hospital websites using Flesch-Kincaid Reading Score and comprehension grade level and assess the speed metrics of websites using PageSpeed Insights . The results indicate that maximum websites ( more than 55 percent) were in the category ‘very difficult to read’ and others even more difficult to comprehend. All websites performed well on Interaction to Next Paint and First Input Delay but most did poorly on all other indicators. Out of 54 websites, Only 6 websites scored a GOOD in overall performance followed by 31 necessitating Improvement and remaining qualifying as poor.