Web Style Guide

The Yale University Center for Advanced Instructional Media offers internet users information on "fundamentals and fundamentally sound advice to help us think for ourselves and design for our users." While the 1st edition of the Web Style Guide was written to help design medically-related websites, the principles have been revamped in the Web Style Guide, 2nd Edition, and can be applied to improve any type of website. This edition of the online guide to site design was written by Patrick J. Lynch of Yale University and Sarah Horton of Dartmouth College.

The authors are very knowledgable in web design; just browsing through the site, I felt that the site was more organized than many other websites I have visited. The navigation bar on the side lets visitors skip to certain sections without scrolling all the way down the page for the link. Visitors are given a "consistent and predictable set of navigation buttons" that show the general organization of the site. The site demonstrates aspects of good web design by example; the user interface is simple and clear, and visitors can learn more about the design in the guide's chapter on interface design. The only drawback for me was the labeling of the navigation bar. At first, I didn't notice that it was actually a navigation bar because it wasn't titled, and because the chapters aren't labeled. The main section would display "Chapter 1: PROCESS," but the navigation bar of shows "PROCESS." The front matter and the back matter aren't included in the navigation bar either, so those who want to see the content would have to scroll to the bottom of the page.

In addition, while the website shows others how to effectively design a website, it didn't seem like the designers of the Web Style Guide took heed of their own advice. On thing I noticed was the dearth of graphics on the page. According to Lynch and Horton, "Without the visual impact of shape, color, and contrast, pages are graphically uninteresting and will not motivate the viewer." They have an entire chapter devoted to page design, so I thought it was ironic how the website was also a victim of graphically uninteresting design. When I first accessed the site, I quickly lost interest in looking around, and it became very tedious to explore the guide even further. I don't know if the designers purposely designed their website to have a neutral look--one that wasn't great or wasn't horrible--but it is evident that they do know what a good page looks like; they cite Williams-Sonoma as an example of a site that balances text and graphics in an effective manner.

The site contains valuable information and links to many great examples of web design; the only flaw I see is that it doesn't follow its own principles completely.

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The Search Engine Watch website is a gold mine for all things related to search engines. As the navigation bar on the side indicates, the site provides visitors with a news blog, a forum, web searching tips, search engine listings, search engine ratings, search engine resources, a daily newsletter, and a monthly newsletter. Judging from that list, there is no doubt that the website is dedicated to search engines.

The site doesn't cater to any specific user; it has articles and tools for both techies and novices. For the casual search engine user, the site offers many articles on how to use search engines more effectively (Web Searching Tips). For example, "Search Engine Math" taught me how to find specific topics I wanted using symbols such as + or -, conventions I've never heard about before. I highly recommend this website to anyone who wants learn how to use search engines more effectively, even if they aren't interested in any other content on the website.

For those who are tech-savvy and don't need tutorials, Search Engine Watch has its own forum and community of users. I found myself in over my head just from looking at the titles of several topics; many of the topics focus on the technical and logistical aspects of search engines--Google's algorithms and search technology, for example--that more advanced users may find interesting.

While the website has a plethora of content, I found the site difficult to navigate because it was cluttered with links, ads, and text; it is very jumbled. The main content of the front-page looks is formatted to look like a blog: most of the articles and links have dates indicating when they were posted. However, there were boxes with forum topics and news stories interspersed between the posts, which contributed to the clutter on the page. Those same boxes are on the navigation bar on the side, so it seemed pointless putting them in between the posts.

Despite being cluttered, the site is indeed a valuable resource to anyone who uses a search engine and every search engine user should visit the site at least once.

The internet and the future of health

The Pew Internet and American Life Project website recently published a report revealing the statistics for current health-topic searches on the internet. The report, entitled "Health Information Online" and written by Susannah Fox, focuses on the increasing popularity of using the internet to access health information. The results of the report are rather indisputable: as the internet becomes integrated into our lives, more poeple are turning to the web to look up health-related topics.

Searches about diets and fitness are gaining popularity, but what caught my attention was that the most popular searches have consistently been those regarding information on specific diseases and medical problems. It seems quite common to look for information on diets and fitness on the internet, just like when someone asks a friend about the same information. However, as more people are turning to the internet to find out about diseases (the practice is the most popular, with 66% of the internet population searching for medical information), I am beginning to question the practicality of researching diseases on the internet. While I have also used the internet to look up information regarding diseases, I also follow up that research with a visit to my physician. Although the internet makes information about diseases available, I know that I'm not an actual doctor. But I wonder if others are doing the same, or are they solely using the internet to diagnose themselves?

While a mother may be able to diagnose her child with the common cold, sometimes, her child may be afflicted with another disease with symptoms similar to a cold. This is a situation where a doctor distinguishes himself from an individual without a medical education; doctors can detect subtle nuances to determine whether a patient is a common, easily curable disease from a rarer disease that may be difficult to cure. In addition, while the internet may eventually replace pharmacists with services that deliver medicine to a person's home, real doctors are the only people that can give a patient a prescription for medicine. The internet cannot prescribe medicine. The trends show that every aspect of health and medicine are becoming integrated into the internet as the years pass. However, the internet doesn't interact with the person using it, and will never be able to diagnose a person as accurately as a doctor.