Website Critique

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Website Critique

Website: American Psychology Association (APA)

Address: https://www.apa.org/

Purpose

The website intends to provide comprehensive news and information regarding psychological issues, including research, trends, reports, and member input. Essentially, the website’s principal objective is to create awareness concerning psychological matters in children and adults. The information is included under various topics with dedicated links that lead to databases, journals, videos, newsletters and magazines, and books. Besides, the website is a platform for psychologists’ most prominent professional and scientific organization within the United States. It caters to in excess of 121,000 members who comprise educators, scientists, students, clinicians, consultants, and scientists. It acts as a database for its members. The website’s principal mission is to enhance the progression, application, and communication of knowledge and science to help society and enhance communities’ lives.

Design and Layout

 According to Beaird, a useful website is one whose layout is simple in appearance with working links and images that are devoid of clutter (11). APA’s website has adopted a simple yet effective design with appropriate sections supported by working links. For consistency, the website utilizes a standard font type and size and shades of blue and white text that makes legibility easy. The images act as thumbnails that link the reader to relevant information. The website’s pictures and graphics are minimalistic and do not draw the reader away from the desired part of the platform. Also, the site has been made to ensure that users can scroll quickly to retrieve pertinent information such as social media sites and databases, including a link to its sitemap, which offers a summary of the entire website in a single webpage.

Learning Points

First, the website provides a guide to using the American Psychology Association (APA) writing format for academic publications. The structure is handy for writing term papers, research theses, and case studies. It is helpful because most institutions prefer the style when it comes to social science studies. Secondly, the website offers detailed trend reports for various psychological topics relevant to daily life. For example, it details how psychologists have provided solutions for multiple issues challenging the psychological domain and subsequently offering future insights for practitioners and other users. Thirdly, the website provides a platform for new members to join the association, such as consultants, students, clinicians, or physicians. The registration process is relatively straightforward and allows members to access significant volumes of data and information included via appropriate links.

Fourth, the website offers an avenue for submitting proposals and ideas published on its platform. The application is relevant because it enables an author to get published and reviewed by psychological experts. Positive reviews are an added advantage to users drawn from various psychological spheres as it enhances their visibility and allows for multiple improvements. Here, one can offer insights and solutions to provide solutions to different psychological issues. Fifth, the website offers trending news regarding issues in psychology. For example, one such news article details how the APA has urged U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to address sexual misbehavior in education and Title IX rule (American Psychology Association 1). The news article helps readers keep abreast with developments and patterns in psychology in the United States and beyond.

Most importantly, the website details where it derives information from authors, associations, and organizations. Author information is provided with each article. One such link is the Grants, Awards, and Funding (https://www.apa.org/about/awards), which details funding sources for psychological training and research. It also provides links for over 600 grants, awards, and scholarships sponsored by APA and affiliated psychological organizations.

Website Rating and Areas for Improvement

On a scale of 1 to 10, the website rates at a solid 8. Overall, the website is well-organized and designed. However, it could be improved by using an elasticity design with popping graphics and images, albeit with minimalistic design, to avoid user distraction.

Website: Mirror-Mirror

Address: https://mirror-mirror.org/eating-disorders-2-2

Purpose

The goal of this particular site is to offer information concerning eating disorders and how to remedy them using professional help across the United States. The website provides statistics on eating disorders and solutions that afflicted individuals could pursue to help alleviate the condition.

Design and Layout

The website adopts a simple design devoid of many links and graphics. The use of black text against a backdrop of black background offers an effective design intended to simplify understanding and decrease distraction from pertinent information. In terms of layout, the website has adopted a single-page form that users can scroll down for more information. The side-panels with additional information are minimal, only offering links to treatment centers and the organization’s newsletters. As outlined by Strauss and Hogan, a good website is characterized by good navigation. Mirror-Mirror makes it easy to find relevant information from one page and offers a working sitemap to guide users regarding the content of each page. Besides, the website sticks to its principal objective by focusing on eating disorders and desired solutions. It also offers a mission statement at the bottom of the page, which is to utilize resources to help people get well and recover from eating disorders.

Learning Points

First, the website provides important statistics for users regarding eating disorders. It also provides demographics associated with the condition. For example, it details that men comprise between 25 percent and 36 percent of individuals with eating disorders. It also provides statistics for gender identities, races, age, and financial abilities, backgrounds, and sizes. The information is useful for policymakers to understand the magnitude of the problem in order to seek appropriate solutions. Secondly, the website provides insight into how eating disorders correlate with drug addiction. The information is useful because it helps practitioners to understand how drugs compound eating disorders and assists users in identifying how they can avoid drugs to avoid the condition.

Third, the website offers a list of treatment centers via a link in the right side-panel. The list is helpful for individuals suffering from eating disorders as they can access treatment from facilities closest to them. It also provides information on specialists in the sphere that can help people suffering from the condition. Fourth, the website offers a blog where users can access trends in eating disorders and make their views and opinions known. Sharing information on the blog is helpful for users who desire to obtain information or offer solutions. Finally, the site provides an overview of the myths surrounding eating disorders. Given that the condition has often been shrouded in mystery, the site provides common miscomprehensions and solutions that can help people identify the problem and seek appropriate help. 

However, the website does not provide relevant sources for its information. For instance, despite outlining figures and statistics of eating disorder trends and demographics, it does not offer links to substantiate the figures. One fascinating link on the website is Myths and Realities (https://mirror-mirror.org/myths-realities), which provides information on bulimia and anorexia. The contents of the webpage detail various fallacies and realities associated with eating disorders. The content is organized under appropriate topics for easier reading and understanding.

Website Rating

The website rates at 5.

Improvement

The site could be enhanced by making it more appealing in terms of design. The enhancement could improve the addition of graphics and navigation tools to improve accessibility. Besides, the organization of information into one long webpage is unappealing. The remedy would be to split different sections into different webpages guided by relevant links.

Website: The Physician and Sport medicine

Address: https://www.tandfonline.com/

Purpose

The aim of this distinctive site is to provide research material for elementary care physicians. It serves the needs of active patient populaces, exploring the latest findings to progress healing and recovery, including clinical aspects of exercise for given conditions. Essentially, it is based on an accelerated publication by MEDLINE, which is an indexed, medically-inclined journal.

Design and Layout

Primarily, the website adopts an index form, which implies that it has a search area where users can type in the name of authors or keywords to enable the finding of particular research material. The layout comprises an assorted collection of journals with various topics that are not arranged in any particular manner. However, the search option enables users to find materials by sections. The use of simple blue and gray colors makes it easy to read. Besides, the use of a consistent font ensures that users can follow information without having to contend with different styles, which could be distracting (Marcus and Rosenzweig 477). Instead of deviating, the website is straightforward as it offers links to journals associated with medical conditions in sports.

Learning Points

First, the website provides numerous links to various conditions in sports medicine. Here, the user is made aware of the diverse clinical conditions that sportspeople can encounter and how to remedy them. It offers an insight into relevant research that links medicine to sports, including risk factors and prevailing conditions in the field of sports. Secondly, the website offers information for latent authors who desire to get published on the database. For scholars, this is critical since it could enhance their visibility and credibility in sports medicine research. It also helps authors to offer solutions, which can then be reviewed by their peers to identify areas for improvement.

Thirdly, the website offers pertinent news on trending topics in sports and how they relate to law and medicine. For example, it outlines how employing Rule Article VIII can help to alleviate the incidences of sports-related concussion within the National Football League (NFL). The information is helpful for policymakers since it can help them formulate preventive measures to address cases of concussion among athletes. Fourth, the website has an open-access section where users can derive an overview of important material and access to open journals. It is helpful for users who desire to undertake research or simply know more about sports-related medical issues. Finally, the website has a way of keeping users up to date with information in the field of sports medicine. Users can register to receive individualized resources and research through email. It is particularly helpful because users might desire to obtain distinct information that they cannot access through open access material. Besides, the website comprises peer-reviewed journals, which means that the content is attributed to credible authors and organizational sources.

One pertinent link on the website is the “Explore our Books” section (https://www.routledge.com/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=B003953_em1_10p_5ec_d713_promotionofbooksontfofooterandhomepage) that provides recommendations for books on various topics. It is also an e-commerce platform intended to sell the books to potential buyers using a cart system. The published books can be searched using author or title and are arranged appealingly with thumbnails of the books with appropriate links.

Website Rating and Improvement

The website rates at 8. The website could be improved by employing more thumbnails on the homepage to make it more appealing since the index-pattern of the site seems quite boring. The website has to integrate some personality, which includes sharing individual testimonials.

Comparison of the Websites

Among the website, the APA one is the most comprehensive in terms of aesthetics and functionality. The website makes it possible to access information from a single page guided by appropriate links. Besides, the web site’s use of minimalism is plausible since it does not distract users from the objectives while providing resources at a click.

Works Cited

American Psychology Association. Psychology in Daily Life, 2020, https://www.apa.org/. Accessed 05 Jan. 2021.

Beaird, Jason. The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. SitePoint, 2016.

Marcus, Aaron and Elizabeth Rosenzweig. Design, User Experience, and Usability. Case Studies in Public and Personal Interactive Systems: 9th International Conference, DUXU 2020, Held as Part of the 22nd HCI International Conference, HCII 2020, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 19-24, 2020, Proceedings. Springer Nature, 2020.

Mirror-Mirror. Eating Disorders, 2020, https://mirror-mirror.org/eating-disorders-2-2. Accessed 05 Jan. 2021.

Strauss, Roy and Patrick Hogan. Developing Effective Websites: A Project Manager’s Guide. Taylor & Francis, 2015.

The Physician and Sportsmedicine. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, Volume 48, Issue 4 (2020), 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ipsm20/current. Accessed 05 Jan. 2021.