Critique of a health consumer education website

Health Website

Smoking cessation is one of the hottest health topics in the United States today, with numerous pharmaceutical companies marketing products that claim to help smokers quit. Both governmental and non-governmental organizations are promoting smoking cessation as an essential feature of personal and public health. Legislation prohibiting smoking in public places is also assisting stop-smoking campaigns. Therefore, a government-sponsored Web site should be evaluated for qualitative, quantitative, and technical/design characteristics: to determine how effective the site is and how useful it might be for Americans.

Demonstrating the extent of stop-smoking campaigns, the smokefree.gov Web site is sponsored by several governmental and para-governmental organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Cancer Institute. In the following report, the smokefree.gov Web site is evaluated according to qualitative criteria and the technical / design characteristics.

Qualitative

Purpose

The purpose of the Website is implied in the title "smokefree.gov." Also, the front page of the Web site includes a list of "Learn how to..." menu items, the first of which is "Learn how to quit smoking." Others include "Learn how to get expert help," and "Learn how to find studies" that back up quitting as being essential for health and well-being. The "About smokefree.gov" section offers a more direct and comprehensive explanation of the purpose of the Web site, which is "intended to help you or someone you care about quit smoking." Also, the "About smokefree.gov" section lists what types of content might be found on the Web site and mentions the site's main sponsors.

One of the most helpful resources included on the smokefree.gov Web site is an "Online Guide to Quitting." The online guide is also one of the items on the Web site that is featured most prominently because it is easy to read, concise, and includes interactive content like quizzes and areas to brainstorm ideas. A solid list of print resources, posted to the Web site in PDF format, offer a wealth of information for consumers in both English and Spanish. Because the information contained on smokefree.gov is backed up by a litany of reputable government institutions, Web site content is trustworthy. At the same time, the Web site does not include any scientific publications that might bolster the validity of its content.

The Web site "smokefree.gov" lacks scientific data to back up the claim that quitting smoking is always beneficial to health. Smoking is simply assumed to be detrimental to health. Because the health risks related to smoking are well-known and widely published, however, the authors of the Web site do not need to incorporate scientific data or back up Web site content with references to scholarly research. Moreover, the purpose of the smokefree.gov web site is not to disseminate medical research but to help consumers quit smoking for good.

Writing Style, Vocabulary, and Audience

The writing style is simple and straightforward, geared toward a general American public of all ages and ethnic groups. Inclusion of Spanish-language material makes the Web site accessible to more readers than it would if all the content were only in English. Vocabulary is deliberately common, to welcome readers of all ages and educational backgrounds. The overly simplified language is not tempered by any scholarly pieces of writing or peer-reviewed journal studies that would offer research to back up the information contained on the Web site. However, the Web site is obviously geared not for a scholarly audience but to a general audience of people who want to quit smoking, and thus the writing style and vocabulary are appropriate for the Web site's intended audience. Many readers may also be of school-age. Given that young children and adolescents might be part of the target audience for the Web site, the vocabulary choices are appropriate.

Fry's Readability

On the Fry's Readability scale, the grade level is about five, based on the use of short sentences, common, everyday language, and frequent subject headers (London, Rankin, & Stallings, 2005, p.248-249. Writing style uses proper grammar and is mature and sophisticated while at the same time being informal.

Contact Agency

Contact information is easy to find, with a frame on each page linking to the five main governmental institutions sponsoring the Web site including the National Cancer Institute. Phone numbers are displayed liberally. A stop-smoking hotline is listed with a toll-free telephone number. Links to sponsoring organizations like the Centers for Disease Control allow visitors to read more, and a "Get expert help" section invites viewers to use instant messaging to communicate with a "National Cancer Institute smoking cessation counselor."

Technical/Design Characteristics

Illustrations are used sparingly. No negative illustrations such as those depicting lungs decayed by cancer are included, keeping the imagery on the Web site positive and inoffensive. Most of the illustrations included on smokefree.gov are photographs depicting men and women exercising and enjoying the great outdoors. The images refresh themselves often, like a slide show. The smiling faces on the models imply that quitting smoking will make anyone feel healthier and more alive. Inclusion of people from various ethnic groups in the smokefree.gov photo database is helpful in reaching a broad audience. Background of the Web site is white, and no distracting or extraneous pictures are used anywhere on the site.

Headings

Headings are used frequently but judiciously, usually as hypertext links to a new subject.

Font

Font is ten point and easy on the eyes; no fancy lettering is used and the font also remains consistent throughout the Web site.

Graphs

Graphs are included on smokefree.gov but only if the reader chooses to input information about his or her smoking status, age, weight and gender. The graphs compare smoker vs. nonsmoker risks of death, and can offer some compelling motivation to quit.

Navigation

The smokefree.gov Web site is easy to navigate because the frames accompany each page. Frames include link to the home/front page and to all other subject headers so that users can move around the site easily. Also, a bottom frame on each page offers external links.

One main navigational issue with the "Online Guide to Quitting" is that the document does not flow. The reader must click on each section from the main content menu, and cannot click "next" to leaf through pages successively as with a book. Instead, a reader must go back to the subject menu to click on the next page. Therefore, navigation through the "Online Guide to Quitting" is tedious. Especially because the content in each section is brief, sometimes only taking up a few lines, the Web designers should allow the online guide to be read more like a book, in consecutive order without having to hit "Back" only to go forward in the text. Similarly, links within each chapter of the online guide sometimes direct the reader away from that page. The only other annoyance with smokefree.gov navigation is that the external links open in the same browswer page automatically; having them open in a new browser window would have been more helpful.