Course Work 1 Website Evaluation

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Introduction In this report, four website have been chosen for analysis. These websites all have similar aims and objectives in the arena of Health in Scotland’s Central Belt. By applying predefined criteria, this report will attempt to grade the sites in four areas there-by generating an informed conclusion based upon content. Four websites representing the aims, objectives and services offered by the major health boards across central Scotland were chosen (leaving out NHS Lanarkshire, as their portal is still under construction.) These sites have been chosen very much with convenience in mind, with Health and how the NHS operates (and how effectively) at a local level. They were also chosen because they all have a shared aim to deliver advice on health issues and news of developments to those living within the health board area. Analysis criteria comes under four categories; Clarity, Quality, Usability and Satisfaction. Each of these is further split into two; Clarity of Content & Clarity of Intent, Quality of Technology & Quality of Navigation, Use of Interactivity & Use of Navigation and finally; Satisfaction of Customer Aim & Satisfaction of Over All Experience. •

Clarity of Content o Layout o Images o Simplicity o Elegance

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Clarity of Intent o Website aim

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Quality of Technology o Standard of technology in use (Video conferencing, DHTML, Java, pod casting, flash, real player, Streaming video, XML, CSS & P2P technologies.) o Fully accessible (web page readers, font size increase tools.)

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Quality of Navigation o Logical navigation o Relevant links

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Use of Interactivity o Level of interactivity. Two/three dimensional.

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Use of Information o Succinctness o Accuracy (In grammar and spelling.) o Logical layout

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o Pertinent answers to simple requests (where possible.) •

Satisfaction of Customer Aim o Initial aim of the visit satisfied o Secondary Incidental requests

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Satisfaction of Over All Experience o Customer Satisfaction out-with primary aim. o Secondary Incidentals.

“The researchers are interested in: o The take up and use of electronic health information delivery, highlighting regional, socio-economic and other demographic differences, and possible contrasting patterns in the exploitation of the various media (or 'platforms') o Issues of usability, barriers inhibiting use, and consequent issues relating to inequalities in information provision o Opinions, attitudes and perceptions of the general public regarding health information generally and its mediation electronically, covering such issues as: perceived quality of service, usefulness of information and how it was employed, relevance of content, range and diversity of perceptions o Possible outcome measures that may be explored in future research, such as take up of health services, changes in health related behaviour and, in the longer term, measures of health changes (e.g. incidence of heart disease, etc.).” (Williams et al 2003. Introduction.) The above points formed the basis for the evaluation form used in this report.

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ANALYSIS. http://www.nhsggc.org.uk http://www.nhsforthvalley.com http://www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk http://www.nhsfife.scot.nhs.uk

NHS Glasgow Stirling and Forth Valley NHS Lothian NHS Fife

Clarity of Content The over all aim of all four websites is one of communication, while layout seems to be similar across the board NHS Lothian has made an effort at a more light hearted possibly frivolous portal. Each uses columns to delineate subject content except Lothian, which has gone for a more nucleated layout. The over all effect is while Lothian’s Portal seems relatively uncluttered; the other sites seem to be rather busy. There is no uniformity between sites what so ever. Content across all four sites seem to come under four distinct categories; news, publications, patient information and publicity drives for projects. While Lothian provides a ruthlessly cut down version of the news, Glasgow, Forth Valley and Fife provide lengthy hyperlinked blurbs on their index pages. This could have the effect of cluttering the portal unnecessarily making it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Clarity of Intent Website aims differ also, while some have at their heart the needs of the public purely in terms of health, others favour recent news pertaining to infrastructure hinting at possible attempts to improve the image of the health board. This is done at the cost of the primary website aim which presumably is to impart information pertaining to the health of those residing in the health board area. NHS Fife and Forth Valley put as much emphasise on news items as they do on health issues. Hospital builds are advertised along side health promotions where as with NHS Lothian and Glasgow, the focus is on health issues. While the latter two sites have news items on display, they are very much secondary to health promotions. The four chosen sites can easily be delineated along these lines. It may also be useful to point out that the National Scottish NHS hosts NHS Fife and NHS Lothian, this means certain central policies regarding content and intent must be adhered to, (Guidelines for Accessibility. Show Team 2003.) Forth Valley and Glasgow have opted out of those National level policies by having a .com and .org extension respectively.

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Quality of Technology Technology standards are good across the board, largely due to rigorous standards set by government in terms of Equality & Diversity. Each site has direct links on the index page to website readers and each also have the option to view versions of the website in other languages. Fife and Lothian are using asp.net (java driven) while Glasgow and Forth Valley have opted for a largely html driven platform. Currently no pod casting is available nor is there any resource for RSS or video streaming. All four sites use a CMS although it is not possible to know which is utilized and by whom. It is highly likely the sites hosted by the Scottish NHS use an Open Source CMS known as Sprocket as this is the new standard being adopted by NSS (National Services Scotland.) Accessibility is part of the NHS’s Equality and Diversity drive so there are many resources from website readers to tools for the visually impaired. NHS Lothian appears to have the best coverage in terms of accessibility due to it not relying on text boxes and table. Website readers find blocks of text contained with tables hard to read. Lothian also has a simple zoom function displayed on each page.

Quality of Navigation Navigation seems logical across all four sites, although some are more cluttered than others. Those that are do have a home page link displayed at all times. Each site has a search function prominently displayed in the header so is available from each page within the site. All site index pages are hyperlink heavy having as they do, several across the page. On some it is not immediately obvious what is and what is not a link. Use of Interactivity All sites offer a degree of interactivity, each have contact forms and most have done away with mailto scripts (except those sites utilising html where some mailto scripts still hide.) It is worth noting, the Lothian site has an alcoholic unit calculator taking it to a higher level of interactivity than the other sites. Apart from being instructive this could be seen as an added draw to the site and may act as something of an attraction. For the most part, these sites act as billboards; they hold and display information. Interaction is limited, there is no online diagnosis service or chat rooms (real time or IRC.) In all four cases, the health advice aspect of the web site is handled by strong coverage of NHS 24 which has an extensive website itself.

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Use of Information In terms of succinctness; Glasgow, Forth Valley and Fife could be seen as extremely verbose. There are many options to choose from, in the case of Glasgow, the colour-coded layout alleviates this somewhat, although one would have to familiar with it. In others, the user could be over whelmed with options. In John Naish’s book ‘Enough’ he states; “The Germans have a saying for it: ‘die Qual der Wahl’ – the torture of choice. Psychologists say that while customers may initially be attracted to a panoply of options, many end up so confused by all the alternatives that they give up in despair,” (Naish, 2008.) Layout might also be seen as somewhat whimsical, each site is different, and while Lothian is less cluttered it is hard to find a deeper logic on the other sites due to the range and breadth of information beyond noticing that ‘news’ is in one place while ‘contact information’ is in another. Spelling and grammar is of a high standard across all four sites except where sound bites have been adopted in order to promote news items. In these instances, grammar has taken something of a back seat. If a user had a particular request for information, it would certainly depend on the level of IT awareness of which they were in possession. In terms of Lothian, due to the lower number of options, the basic aim is to dispense information on health and it could be seen to have an edge in this area. In the other sites, that aim may have been diluted somewhat by dissemination of news items, job applications and a plethora of other topics. This could detract from the main thrust of the web sites, which is arguably; to display information on matters pertaining to health, if the information is not immediately available, alternative means are made available so users can find it.

The search boxes can not be configured to search specific areas so may not be entirely useful in terms of focused user research. On Fife’s site the Google search tool is utilised, as is the case on Forth Valley. A bespoke search tool is provided use on Lothian’s site. But by far the most useful is the search tool available on the NHS Glasgow site. At first glance in appears to be a standard search function, however, search results are provided according to the categories in which they were found; news, site content, services, locations and document library. This could be seen as selling point given that internet and site searches can be problematic in terms of setting parameters, often it seems easier to state what is not required as opposed to what is.

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Satisfaction of Customer Aim. A good measure of information-based sites such as these is their ability to hold the attention and further draw the user in. Importantly it being health orientated, other related (or indeed, unrelated) requests for information might be stimulated. “NHS Lothian is committed to helping everyone to live a healthier and happier life, by providing quality health services, promoting the correct information and advice to help patients to improve their own health and that of their families.” (NHS Lothian ‘Your Health’ 2009.) With this in mind, it would seem that an integral aim is not only to satisfy current users needs and requests but also to encourage more interest and to promote other health projects. Each website has a similar section setting out its aims in this area, NHS Lothian seems to do it most succinctly. When looking for specific information to satisfy this part of our form; ‘customer satisfaction.’ The topic of Smoking was chosen; by far the most useful information was gleaned from the NHS Glasgow site purely due to the categorisation of the search results. Potential users can better differentiate between what is salient and what is not. Interestingly, due to this categorisation, news items found by the search process proved to be pertinent and useful; an excellent example of the stimulation of secondary incidental information being imparted, holding the user’s attention and in this instance, providing a fuller more rounded service. It should be said, ‘stop smoking’ projects feature heavily on each index page, it was chosen merely to test the search functions of each web site. In the real world, the user wouldn’t have to search as it features prevalently on each index page. Satisfaction of Over All Experience More often a user’s level of satisfaction is not measured only on the basis of the visit’s primary aim, when using an Internet portal, in a sense, it is also a journey with waypoints. The websites index page, the search page, the returned results page and the page holding the information. No site these days is without banner ads of some sort, were the adverts pertinent? Were alternatives offered if a suitable source of information could not be found? Increasingly websites for government departments and local authorities have become in part marketing tools, in the NHS, Google Statistics are used to monitor traffic around sites. All four sites attempt to capture the interest of users in order to keep them within the portal; this can be a double-edged sword. As mentioned before, too much choice can be a bad thing. When seeking a specific piece of information, a user could be forgiven for losing patience while being forced navigating multiple steps.

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In terms of over all experience, NHS Lothian is a good example. Stopping Smoking was used in this report as a test, a link was provided on all four sites’ index pages to the Smoking Cessation help line. However, on the Lothian site the Alcoholic Unit Counter tool was prevalent and would likely cause users to explore this avenue of their health. This comes under the heading of a ‘secondary incidental aim.’ It is point brought to the attention of the user by the website encouraging further investigation and possibly increasing the sense of over all satisfaction by the user with the service they have been provided.

Conclusion The analysis above looks at the ability of four websites representing the health boards of Central Scotland. While they are largely similar to one and other in appearance, (with the exception of Lothian) they vary in that the Glasgow and Forth Valley websites tend to favour news items, suggesting these sites are not primarily concerned with health but also with the perceptions the public have about the health boards. Lothian and Fife appear more geared toward health concerns. It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of websites where the subject matter is so broad and arguably in some cases complicated. If a user has a specific topic to research and is suitably webenabled, a visit to any of these websites would bare fruit. However, do to the complexity and variable nature of the subject of health, a more complicated request would be harder to fulfil.

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REFERENCE Peter Williams, David Nicholas, Paul Huntington & Fiona McLean. Wiley Interscience. Retrieved 18/03/09 from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgibin/fulltext/118963727/HTMLSTART Show Team (2003) Guidelines for Accessibility. Retrieved 18/03/09 from http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/App_Download/pdf/SHOWstyleGuideV2.21_250 803.pdf Naish, John (2008) ‘Enough’ Pg 147 Great Britain: Hodder & Stoughton NHS Lothian. ‘Your Health’ Para 1. Retrieved 18/03/09 from http://www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/yourhealth/yourhealth.asp

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