Sunday, July 25, 2010

Blog 4: Website Evaluation

Dear Webmaster,
Upon visiting your website, AEGIS, I was very impressed with the amount of up to date information you provide on your website pertaining to HIV. As a peer specialist for the HOPE project at Pine Belt Mental Health in Hattiesburg, MS,(an outreach organization dedicated to counseling and informing local youth on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention) I found your website to be a very beneficial source of information for today’s breaking news on HIV/AIDS. You have provided many sources of information on the website covering many different aspects of HIV from ‘Ask the doc’ to ‘Law’. It is very obvious you have left no stone unturned in attempting to provide many different avenues of information and ways to obtain more information on HIV/AIDS.
I believe your website could be very successful if it were more user- friendly. If I may, please allow me to give a few possible pointers in making your website a bit more functional and successful in your passion to inform the world on HIV news/ topics.
The first thing that is observed on visiting a website is obviously the website itself. Upon visiting AEGIS, I noted a few things that could be adjusted to make the website more appealing. The font is somewhat difficult to read, blurry, and not very easy on the eyes when some links to other areas of the page are viewed. The text lines seem to be on top of each other. Another font choice would quickly eliminate this problem, and also making it a size larger increases its visual prominence. The background on the home page is white which is also a bit blinding in contrast with the bright blue- green color of the side tool bar.
Pertaining to the tool bar, might I suggest putting the toolbar/tabs at the top of the page? This will allow you to utilize the space of the page and eliminate the viewer from having to scroll down as much- as most people will not want to do. The information on your website is so vast that it may seem somewhat overwhelming. It would also be very beneficial to put some of the news updates in categories under the top toolbar under ‘News’ with subheadings such as ‘UNAIDS’, ‘Fundraising’, ‘Political News’ and maybe even a page with the heading ‘countries’, where you can have links for each country that you report on.
On the color choice of the left tool bar, may I suggest a more neutral color than the bright blue- green color. A webpage isn’t made eye catching by bright colors- it’s by good color choice and coordination of colors. If this green is the color of absolute choice, may I suggest not pairing it with such a contrasting white background. Another possible background color choice, could be dark blue and red- as in your logo colors.
It would also be beneficial to add an ‘about us’ page so that your viewers know exactly what your organization’s goals and views are directed towards. This also allows the viewers to know exactly who you are, where you are based, and other valuable information.
Arranging the information on your page into easy to access tabs, will allow your readers to easily get to the information they are looking for. Your website may have the most up to date, accurate information available on the web but when a page is too congested potential followers will turn away, and never be as informed and current as, I believe, your website could allow them to be about HIV/ AIDS.
You have provided so much documented and well researched information on your website that I would love to see it utilized and put to good use, and for you to see a drastic change in the numbers of people that see your hard, diligent work. I want to praise you for your passion on informing the world of the recent discoveries, political insight, and outreach information you provide on your website and hope you continue your work! I hope my advice has been useful and you see the benefits behind making your page a successful one. You undoubtedly have put a hard work and sweat behind this webpage and I want you to achieve the following you deserve!

Sincerely,
Coretta Johnson
(The website evaluated was http://www.aegis.com/
more so on http://www.aegis.com/todaysnews/du.asp

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