Food composition on the World Wide Web: A user-centred perspective

The Word Wide Web is widely used for presenting food composition data. We use the web site of the Finnish Food Composition Database Fineli (www.fineli.fi) to illustrate some basic user-centred issues. Since 1999 Fineli has had more than 500,000 visitors, as measured with free trackers, and its popularity is constantly increasing. Promotion seems to be important for popularity. The web appears to be a suitable forum for presenting food composition information to the nutrition experts who convert nutritional information and dietary guidelines into common practice in Finland. However, it is essential for the success of a web site of this kind that it can easily be found and has a high ranking in search engine results. In addition, it is important that the site contain search terms that users feel are natural, including commonly used food names. Fineli was considered to be a reliable and adequate source of information, and to match well with the Finnish diet. Moreover, Fineli seems to have avoided some of the most common mistakes in web design. We recommend usability testing and evaluation for all similar sites. We think that usability is strategic to any web site, and that it is the key element in a user-centred approach.