What Neilsen Might Say about Three Enviro Web Sites

What Neilsen Might Say about Three Enviro Web Sites

After reading Chapter 3 of Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, I thought it might be interesting to apply some of the usability findings in comparing several web sites of local environmental groups. Neilsen and Loranger’s observations are directed primarily to business managers, but in many cases, their findings apply equally to government and nonprofit sites in which usability plays, if anything, an even more critical role than in commerce. Although government sites rely on tax dollars, their issues must resonate with the public if they are to compete in a meaningful way for government funding. Where nonprofits are concerned, investment in environmental issues is critical to the survival of the organization. From a fund raising perspective, we know that a majority of new donors review an organization’s web site before deciding to provide support.

Two Government Sites

Mindful of Nielsen and Loranger’s observation that “government agencies are often the worst offenders” (p. 81) with regard to the usability problem of Dense and Unscannable Text, I decided to start by reviewing the sites of the Connecticut DEP http://www.ct.gov/dep/site/default.asp and the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality http://www.ct.gov/ceq/site/default.asp. Although the DEP site has a lot of information to organize, it does not feel so much copy-heavy as perhaps link-heavy. The CEQ site, however, requires the viewer to read several ponderous paragraphs to take in what it does. My timing was slightly less than the 1 minute, 49 seconds (p.78) that Neilsen and Loranger say it takes a viewer to decide whether it is worth investing time on the site. Both sites feature links that change color when visited, with the CEQ site offering a different color for the most recently viewed link from previously viewed links.

On the DEP site, the central visual offers a good indication of the range of issues covered by the agency: recreation, wildlife, and resource protection throughout the state. A prominent tagline offers a clear mission statement. New information is usually presented in a new browser window, rather than using the existing window. As Neilsen and Loranger point out, this has the potential to crowd the user’s workspace with more open windows than is necessary or desirable. The home page makes good use of multiple menus. While some of these could be condensed under other broader headings, reducing menu clutter, the plethora of headings is possibly due to each department having its own link, which in such a strongly bureaucratic and hierarchical setting may be a given.

The CEQ site is not visually stimulating, featuring as it does only a small image of a brown report. There is no mission statement or tagline, so the casual observer has to read several ponderous paragraphs to take in what the Council does. My timing to read and understand the copy was slightly less than the 1 minute, 49 seconds (p.78) that Neilsen and Loranger say it takes a viewer to decide whether it is worth investing time on the site. The language is not on an 8th grade level which would make it readily understandable by anyone. The links, however, open in the same browser window, rather than additional windows, keeping workspace clutter to a minimum for the viewer. The group’s main accomplishment lies in the report that they offer, which was easily downloadable and offered in various formats, including a print option by mail. The links were simple, clear and easy to understand.

One Non-Profit Site

For the purposes of comparison, I thought it might be interesting to then consider a non-governmental site. I chose Connecticut Clean Water Action at http://www.cleanwateraction.org/ct/. This site requires an inordinate amount of scrolling to take in the lengthy text, where links could provide a more user-friendly approach. A couple of appealing visuals are buried at the bottom of the scroll. The site is not visually stimulating, featuring as it does one tiny visual in the right-hand corner. Unlike the DEP site, there is no tagline or mission statement to present quick info on what the organization does. There is a description of the group’s history in a text box on the right, which might better have been employed as a “history” link. While the “print” option at the top is straightforward enough, the “email” option is confusing, since the viewer does not know whether the email is directed from the user to the organization or from the user to another user. (Clicking on the email indicates that the latter is the case.) The topics Health, Coastlines and Fisheries look as if they could be links, but they are not. In that regard, the words do not do what the user might expect, violating a convention of bold text prominently displayed above the fold.

Of the three sites, the most successful is the Connecticut DEP site. It conveys what the agency does quickly, is reasonably visually attractive, uses language that anyone can understand, does not require excessive scrolling and, although it features multiple menus, those menus are easy to understand.