Comparison of two psychology websites on schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease

¶ … URL and date of your visit

The term searched was Schizophrenia and these two sites came up in rank for 3 searches.

One was Johns Hopkins Medicine http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/epigen/szwhatis.htm, [accessed on March 8, 2013]

The other is Mayo Clinic, http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/schizophrenia/DS00196/DSECTION=symptoms [accessed on March 8, 2013]

The first is a site owned by the Johns Hopkins Medicine Centre and is their own webpage for public relation Purposes. It also is educative to the public with a number of diseases listed. The second is the website of the Mayo Clinic, and is owned by Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER).

An appraisal of the format in which the material is presented at the site

To evaluate the sites the following criteria were considered from the layman's point-of-view. These criteria have been addressed for both the sites. The criteria are: readability and access complete information, trustworthiness, other links to information, from the point of layman, and from a professional viewpoint. The evaluation for both the sites is as below. Sites are referred to by the name of the owners.

Readability and access: The Johns Hopkins Medicine site is done in probably basic HTML probably using link pages. The font is not conductive to reading, there are too many boxes and links to other pages and though the information is presented in full, it has become tedious to read. There are no interesting illustrations but lots of links are present that would confuse and enrage the reader. It is not a good way of presenting the information. On the other hand the Mayo Clinic site is very professional, they offer further information in the form of a bulletin and the subject is divided to paragraphs which refresh after a click leading to the next one. Also simple links are provided on the side to every subject and paragraph of the topic. There are other links, more information and contact addresses available on the page. It is a thoroughly professional page.

Complete information: Both the pages give complete information and links to the layman, but their information is not useful to a professional. On the other hand Mayo Clinic has a separate link for professionals who my want to interact. However from the point of the lay man, information is accurate to his or her needs in both. The Hopkins site has gone too deep into the history of the disease which may not be useful to the lay person, but a researcher. Information has been better served by the Mayo site because of the language, and readability.

Trustworthiness: There is no doubt that both these institutions are highly trust worthy and the sites give ample reference links to information that can be checked out. Both thus are equal in this respect.

Other links to information: The Hopkins site is studded with links confusing the visitor; reference links to information have been neatly bundled in the Mayo site so that it does not interfere with the essay being read.

From the point of layman: The Mayo clinic site is the best for the layman who wants to know more of the disease and seek help, there are no jargons and the subject is dealt with in an easy manner. On the other hand the Hopkins site would confuse the layman who wants information because most of it is academic and not useful to him or her.

From a professional viewpoint: the Hopkins sites offer vast information to the researcher and these are scholarly and in full. The references would lead to links that have interesting content for the researcher, however the Mayo clinic site does not offer much to the professional.

Aesthetics: Definitely the Mayo site beats the Hopkins site by a scale of 9 -2 in terms of aesthetics because of its neat and professional presentation, while the site of Hopkins has to be improved a lot.