iCanQuit: Helping smokers help themselves
The Cancer Institute NSW’s innovative new website iCanQuit officially went live in December 2010, providing an online resource for smokers and recent quitters to quit and stay quit.
Since then, more than 19,000 people have accessed the site,
looking through the content and contributing to some of the 120
plus stories that make up the hints, tips and thoughts around their
own quit attempt.
Already, with more than 800 registered members, we have been
able to breakdown the user profile with some interesting results.
Around 81 per cent of the people going on the site are current
smokers, with the remaining 19 per cent having already quit.
Sixty-six per cent are female and the average age fits in the
bracket 25-44 years of age. As postcode is also collected we have
been able to establish that there is currently quite an even spread
across the socioeconomic quintiles.
While it is still too early to see any real pattern, visitation
has spiked when we promote campaigns with a direct call to action
to the website.
| iCanQuit.com.au - membership by gender (n, %) |
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| iCanQuit.com.au - membership by age (%) |
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| iCanQuit.com.au - membership by SEIFA* quintiles (%) |
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* SEIFA:the socio-economic indexes for
areas produced by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Members' experiences
A member shares his motivation to quit:
A young man shared how he recently lost his mother to a heart
attack. She was only in her mid 40s. He describes her as his best
friend as she supported him through a very difficult time in his
teenage years.
His other support was smoking.
Now he is thinking of having a family of his own, he is
determined to give up cigarettes so he can be there in the future
for his partner and children.
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One of the key highlights of the website has been the success of
the stories and experiences section with more than 120 stories,
hints and tips submitted by the online community to rally around
each other to provide support and advice.
The comments and responses from members encouraging each other
in their journeys are what make this website so ground breaking.
They are forming their own community, their own support network.
Ultimately, they are encouraging each other in the
sometimes-difficult journey to overcome their addiction to
cigarettes.
The future looks to be exciting for the iCanQuit website.
| User-centred design |
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In order to create a website that effectively supports people on
their quitting journey, current smokers and successful quitters
from across NSW were involved throughout all stages of the website
design and development process.
Various research methods were used when developing the iCanQuit
website, including focus groups, contextual enquiries, expert
reviews, card sorting techniques and task analysis activities.
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| Top five visited pages on iCanQuit |
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1. My
Journey
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2. Methods
to quit
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3. Stories
and experiences
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4. Quit
Kit
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5. Savings
calculator
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