WEB 240
Week 5
Final Project
Website Evaluation Paper
The virtual organization being evaluated, their purpose, and intended audience
The overall goal of our team is to provide recommendations to Patton-Fuller Community
Hospital regarding its current website. These recommendations will be in alignment with the
organization strategic plan which includes, improving communication with its patients, increase
patient growth, and establish a web presence that provides interactive services and patient
awareness of available services. The current homepage design have vague information about the
purpose of the site and not that appealing to any visitors. In other words, this site needs to be
more innovative and interactive. We also recommend putting some security features to restrict
access to confidential information pertaining to the organization. For example, under Human
Resource, “Employee files”, “Organization Chart”, and “Policies & Procedures” under facilities
should not be accessible to the public but only employees of the Organization. In order to reach
our goal of bringing the current site to a more innovative and interactive site the following tasks
will be used.
The following includes a list of design criteria our team came up with
FEATURES
DETAILS
Clear site navigation
Will bring structure and organization throughout the site
Color scheme
To minimize the overpowering of the contents
Site testing
Test our site on multiple browsers
Readable text
Use proper font size that would make text easy to read and easily
scanned
High light key points
Provide an easy way to identify important information
Graphics
Use images that would contribute to the user experience
Create sidebar links
Will assist with navigating through site materials
Homepage links
Provide a link back to the home page from every page of the site
Highlight Headers
Will allow the user to focus on key materials
Correct spelling and
Will assist user with understanding the materials written throughout the
Grammar
site.
About us
Will include information about the organization, History and possibly
the mission/vision/Core values
Careers Opportunities
Will include information about how to apply for any of the vacancies
listed in the different job descriptions
News
Information pertaining to current events in the community such as
blood drives and health screens
Providers
List the physicians and their specialties
Services
This list the different services offered
Website update
Information about the last time the materials was updated
Visitor count
How many visitors viewed the site
Social media links
Which includes Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Google
The results of the comparative review of sites
Questions
The First Look
1st Website
2nd Website
Community Hospital -
Community Hospital of San
http://communityhospitalokc.com/#
Bernardino http://www.chsb.org/index.htm
What was your
Initial feeling was that it is a little
Initial feeling was that it is well
initial impression of
vague. Not enough detail, too much
presented, organized.
the site? Did you
“white space”
feel bored,
overwhelmed, or
confused?
How much time did
Instantly, the site is upfront in its
Instantly, the site is upfront in its
it take to realize the
purpose
purpose
What is the target
Patients residing in Southwest
Patients residing in San
audience for the
Oklahoma City
Bernardino, California
No significant differences
No significant differences
purpose of the site?
site?
Did the site look the
same in multiple
browsers, if multiple
browsers were
available?
Was there contact
Contact information available in the
Contact information linked in the
information
left side bar
upper right hand corner of the
immediately
header
available?
Were there
Privacy link at the bottom of the site
indications that you
Web site and patient privacy links
at the bottom of the site
could trust the site?
What were the
indications?
Was the text easy to
Text was a little small, could stand to Text was easily read and
read and easily
be slightly larger
scannable
The layout seemed very condensed.
The layout seemed a little too
scanned so that you
did not have to read
every word?
What are your
thoughts about the
stacked vertically making it not
layout and colors of
as easy to scan. Colors were
the site? What
minimal and didn’t do much for
impression do they
the site.
give?
Finding Your Way
Around
How was the
Side bar link with center column and
Content shaped in blocks making
navigation
header
navigation extremely vertical
Navigation was straight forward
Navigation was straight forward
Was there a clear
Header home page link on every
Header home page link on every
way back to the
page
page
yes
yes
none
none
organized?
When using the
navigation, was it
intuitive or did you
need to use some
trial-and-error to
figure out what was
behind each link?
home page from
every page of the
site?
Did you find the
navigation to be
consistent
throughout the site?
Were there any
pages on the site that
forced you to use the
back button because
you could not figure
out another way to
move forward?
The Content
How easy was it to
A lot of the information was hidden
Much of the information was
find the important
in related “tree” links
accessed directly by clicking
On pages with lots
Not very helpful. Links and
There was a helpful link and
of content, were
navigation were a little sparse
search bar at the top of each page
information? Was it
prominently
displayed or buried
in detailed
paragraphs?
there features to help
you find what you
were looking for,
such as links across
the top of the page
that took you to
other parts of the
page?
If there were articles
Article were dated by year only
Article were dated by year only
Did images on the
Images were present, but did not
Images were plentiful and
pages contribute to
seem to be used effectively when
provided navigational help
the user experience?
they were used at all
Was the text well
Text was written correctly, no
Text was written correctly, no
written and free of
broken links
broken links
It was very compact and to the point
A lot of information and
on the site, could
you tell when they
were written?
mistakes? Did you
find any spelling
errors? Were there
broken links?
Your Thoughts
What impressed you
the most about this
navigation was easy to use
site?
What features on
The flip photo and link feature at the
this site would you
bottom of each page
want to make sure to
incorporate into your
own site?
Video integration
What would you
I would make it fill out, less white
I would re-arrange the format a
change if you were
space
little and have it less clumped
the owner of the
together
site?
What features on
I would make important features
I would re-do the way they
this site would you
more obvious for less computer
present site news. It gets lost with
make sure to avoid
literate users, maybe dumb it down
the layout they use.
when creating your
some.
own site?
A detailed analysis of the selected Virtual Organization site based on the chosen design criteria
Team C analysis of the Patton-Fuller Community Hospital website based on our chosen
design criteria. The initial impression of the website was that it was vague and not enough detail.
It was understood that the website was for hospital but did not supply sufficient information
regarding the hospitals services on the homepage. According to the homepage target audience of
the website is anybody at any stage of life however the homepage does not list a specified region
of the hospitals location which would leave visitors to the site confused. Furthermore the website
did not provide any contact information on the homepage. The text and the font size make the
content of the website easy to read and easily scanned. The initial impression about the layout
and colors of the site was that it was plain. The navigation of the site was organized simply with
a menu bar below the top header picture, but to not provide any drop-down submenus. However,
when using the site navigation was simple and straightforward only lacking the depth drop-down
submenus provide. The main header picture provided a direct link back to the homepage.
Navigation was consistent throughout the site the same menu bar layout on all the various pages.
The immediately available information on the homepage only provided a vague statement of the
site's purpose. However, once a menu item was selected, there was slightly more depth regarding
the information on the menu item’s topic. Correct spelling and grammar was consistent
throughout the site which assists visitors with understanding the materials displayed.
Recommendations for improvements to the site based on the design analysis and the inclusion of
metadata to promote the website
The current design of the Patton-Fuller Community Hospital is functional, but we wanted
to create and redesign that went above and beyond. Our goal was to design a new homepage for
Patton-Fuller that included high functioning design elements that provided our visitors with clear
and easy navigation of our site, as well as better readability and flow of content on the
homepage. We wanted to do this by using innovative and creative design principles.
We feel that one improvement we could make on Patton-Fuller’s homepage was the color
scheme. By adding another color pallet to the homepage, it would create some additional
contrast between the page and some visual elements we intend to include on the homepage. We
plan to use our new color design throughout the Patton-Fuller website to maintain continuity.
Finding and using contrasting colors will create a design that is more interesting to the visitors of
the website, and will create a better overall experience for them. In addition to the color scheme,
we also suggested adding a banner graphic that will immediately attract the eye of the visitor
when the page loads. It was important that we add this element, but not in a way that distracted
the user from the content of the site.
Another area we improved on the Patton-Fuller homepage was the navigation. The
current navigation links contain only one link that provides a drop-down menu. In order to
provide the website visitors with an easy navigational experience, we added drop-down menus
with subcategories on all of our link headings. This allows the visitors a quick reference glimpse
at topics included under each link. This feature makes navigating the website much more
quickly for the user and saves them from being required to over use the “back” button on the
browser. We also want to improve the flow of text on Patton-Fuller’s homepage. This will
enhance readability and comprehension of the important information on the homepage. Some of
the most important information a visitor to the website will need to have is located on the
homepage, so it’s important that it is displayed clearly and prominently.
Another important part of our redesign of Patton-Fuller Community Hospital was the
addition and inclusion of metadata. It was necessary for us to include this to improve PattonFuller Community Hospital’s web presence. It will allow for our website to be easily searched
for by keywords within the browser. Including metadata that accurately and simply describes the
content of our website will allow users to locate our site more quickly and accurately. This is
extremely useful for users of any demographic.
A description of proposed changes
The first proposed change is a re-designed home page. A redesigned more functional
home page for Patton Fuller Community Hospital that is well organized with the organization’s
information. The home page will be well designed, and intended to allow the user quick
navigation to informational links. The homepage redesign will integrate interactive features as
well as drop-down submenus. The links on the home page will indicate the prominent
information our potential users will need. The design will be done to make the website
appealing to visitors.
The second proposed change would be the addition of in “about us” menu. This link to
the “about us” section will be designed to display information and pictures related to Patton
Fuller Community Hospital’s history, mission statement, future visions and their core values.
We will also include directions to our facilities in the “about us” section.
The third proposed change would be a career opportunities section. A career
opportunities section will allow visitors to browse the Hospital’s current career opportunities.
This page will also provide interested visitors to set up an account and receive updates on new
opportunities as they become available.
The fourth proposed change would be in services section. The service section will display
the Hospital’s services that are provided to its patients and investors. This page will also
highlight some of our common services like blood drives, flu shots, and promoting heart health.
The fifth proposed change would be links to social media such as Facebook, twitter,
blogs and Google+. Social media is an efficient way for an average user to be more interactive
with a company's website. Facebook and twitter also provide companies such as Patton-Fuller
Community Hospital with an outlet to promote their business and services to the public for little
or no cost.
References
Felke-Morris, T. (2011). Web development & design foundations with XHTML (5th ed.).
Retrieved from University of Phoenix Collection Database.
W3Schools. (1999-2012). Retrieved from http://www.w3schools.com