Kat Hamilton

Dr. Andrews

English 3379

28 February 2017

Website Analysis

The two informational websites I chose to analyze are AAMC (Association of American

Medical Colleges) and National Geographic. I chose these two sites because they both have very

clear strengths and weaknesses throughout. In this analysis, I will apply the Bite, Snack, Meal

concept, explain two weaknesses and strengths for each website that I think go with the structure

of the page, and relay my personal opinion throughout. I will also attach visuals at the end of the

paper to accommodate a better understanding. Rather than doing the entire website as a whole, I

narrowed into a particular subject for each that interest me (see hyperlinks for specific pages in

later text).

Intro and Audience for AAMC

For the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) informational website, I

decided to narrow my analysis to the AAMC for Students, Applicants, and Residents page where

I’ve visited most in the past couple months. This website is where someone who is interested in

applying to medical school, or finding a career in the medical field, or even finding other

information such as residency or fellowship information would do his or her research. This

website targets pre-medical students who are looking to apply to medical school, those who are

already medical students, and those who are looking into their post-medical school graduation

such as residencies and fellowships. The headings in AAMC are very “specific… [and are]

focused on what [they] want [their] site visitors to do” (Redish, 18). The headings cater to each

of the audiences I described earlier by having each heading a different tab to open based on

whom you are and what you’re looking for. For example, in Figure 1.1, the headings that cater to

each of the audiences’ described include Choosing a Medical Career, Applying to Medical

School, Attending Medical School, and Training in a Residency or Fellowship.

Strengths and Weaknesses for AAMC

I think there are many good strengths and weaknesses. Two good strengths about this

website is the tidiness and how it follows the “bite, snack, meal” concept as described in pages

134-135 of Letting Go of the Words, and the second strength is the content of the website. This

website has a very strong approach to the “bite, snack, meal” (Redish, 134-135) concept because

it takes small chunks for information and breaks them down proportionally. For example, as

shown in Figure 1.2 the home page under Applying to Medical School has a bold headline About

the MCAT® Exam. The snack of this page gives a description under the headline, or the bite,

about what the MCAT is. Then, for the meal portion of the page, it gives you a Learn More tab

that gives you all the information you need to know and breaks it into chunks with different

links, tabs, etcetera throughout. This website also gives the audience a strong thread of

information. The content, or conversation, of the website is satisfied by building “confidence that

[the audience] could trust” (Redish, 3), and “is relevant to what [the audience] needs” (Redish,

5). Everything I would need to know about medical school, applying for medical school, and

applying for residencies or fellowships is clear and concise.

Two weaknesses about this website is the amount of content, and the organization of the

content. Both the amount of content and organization are both very good thing, but in my

personal opinion, it is a bit much on this website. For example with the amount of content, you

are constantly clicking on link after link to get all the information. It’s not all there in one sitting.

In Figures 1.0 and 2.0, the home page has an exceptionally high volume of information on it such

as Contact, Essentials, Accommodations, Register, Test Scores, Taking, Prepare, Register

(again), Test Day and Security, Scores (again), etcetera. The list goes on. I feel like for a home

page it’s a bit much and “bombarded with information and are sinking under information

overload” (5). With the amount of content, I feel like the organization could be a bit better.

Although it is a clearly organized webpage, I feel like because of the information overload, there

could be a better arrangement of organization. The amount of items on the home page can be

organized elsewhere, especially if there are multiples of the same subject. For example, in Figure

1.3, the contact information could be put at the bottom of the website and not what should be the

meal section of the page. Most webpages have their contact information at or towards the bottom

under resources, or with its own contact link. I feel like this is a better way to organize. You want

the priorities at the top. Not everyone, including me, came to contact the MCAT Program, and

there is a higher percentage of people (assuming) that are looking for information on the AAMC

website that is involved with either Choosing a Medical Career, Applying to Medical School,

Attending Medical School, or Training in a Residency or Fellowship. Redish talks similarly

about this subject but with forms, “don’t put unnecessary forms up front” (Redish, 83) which I

think can also stretch into not putting information that is not needed up front, but rather organize

it into a better location. And, if you can’t ever find something, there’s always the search bar to

search for whatever it is you need.

Intro and Audience for National Geographic

For my second website analysis, I chose to do National Geographic and narrow it down

to one of my favorite topics their Snapchat Feature always covers: ASTRONOMY. To even

further my National Geographic Astronomy analysis, I decided to analyze an article on a new

exciting topic, “Seven Alien ‘Earths’ Found Orbiting Nearby Star” by Nadia Drake. I think doing

an informational article is a good different category of a website, as I did with the AAMC site.

This website is directed towards those astronomist junkies (aka me), or even those who just like

a good science read on the newest findings in our big, big universe.

Strengths and Weaknesses for the Spacey Stuff

For a web article for a major company, I think this article has a few weakness and a few

strengths. I think the two strengths we have here is the web design color, and the Bite, Snack,

Meal concept (Redish, 134-135). Starting with the color, Redish explains what you should look

for as a designer with guidelines for color: Work with your brand colors, use light and dark

sparingly, keep background clear, and keep the contrast high (Redish, 52). National

Geographic’s articles are usually plain-Jane and only use their logo colors. Although it’s a bit

boring, Figure 3.0 still shows good design and follows Redish’s guidelines for “working with

your brand colors” (Redish, 52). If you look at Figure 4.0, the article does not use light on dark

other than on one of the illustrations incorporated in it, which is good because light on dark can

“difficult to read for sustained periods” (Redish, 52). National Geographic does a very good job

of keeping their backgrounds clear. The backgrounds are usually just white, every occasionally it

will be black, but for this example, white. Redish’ advice for keeping backgrounds clear is

simply “don’t do it” (Redish, 52). On the last guideline of color, “legibility requires contrast

between text and background… many combinations make test difficult to read” (Redish, 53).

Contrast between the text and background are extremely important because you do not want your

audience to strain their eyes trying to read your information because you wanted to get fancy

with some color. Contrast is huge, because if your audience starts to get nauseous (like I might)

when reading something with a high, vibrant color, then you did your job as a designer wrong.

You want to make your article as easy as possible to retrieve information from. Think of it as a

‘color for dummies’ kind of thing.

The Bite, Snack, Meal concept Redish, (134-135) also applies to this quite well. In Figure

3.1, the headline, “Seven Alien ‘Earths’ Found Orbiting Nearby Star” is clear, bolded, and has a

“medium length…about eight words” (Redish, 160). Under the headline, the snack, or brief

summary, is presented. For the meal section of this article, it provides really great details on what

the author is trying to convey. She also includes some really cool links throughout her article that

lead to more information on different things such as the TRAPPIST-1 star or on other scientists

involved such as Amaury Triaud. (I would highly recommend looking at Amaury Triaud’s

hyperlink because the web page is extremely interactive and full of details).

Two weaknesses that the website encounters is the way the text is set up, and the

annoying You Might Also Like in the smack middle of the article. One thing I find a little

annoying about this article is how the text is set up. As in Figure 5.0, all of the space is

distributed evenly through the margins in the middle of a blank background. It makes it feel

unfinished because of how blank it is and how perfectly aligned the text is on both sides. I think

this can somewhat relate to Redish’s “don’t center text” (Redish, 59) explanation. Although it’s

not using a center alignment for the text, but the entirety of text is centered into the page. It

seems chaotic and “hard to read” (Redish, 60). When I look at the page, I get overwhelmed

because of the way it looks and I feel like I do not have an “anchor” (Redish, 59) for my eyes. I

also keep losing my place because of the way it’s aligned on the page.

I think the other annoying bit about this article is the You Might Also Like in the middle

of the article. If you see Figure 5.0, the publisher has set the text alignment off and with all of

that blank space on the page, why does it have to be in the middle of the text. It is distracting and

offsets the page. An, not only is it in the middle of the text, it’s also at the bottom of the page in

another You Might Also Like designated area. I don’t see the need to have one in the middle of

your text, and a duplicate at the bottom.

To Conclude…

I find both webpages have very good strengths according to Redish, and a few

weaknesses according to an audience and her view as well. Although these webpages have some

annoying factors to them, no webpage will be perfect according to Letting Go of the Words.

However, they do follow some pretty important design guidelines such as the Bite, Snack, Meal

concept (Redish, 134-135), guidelines for color (Redish, 52), and content and conversation

(Redish, 2-5).

Figures

Fig. 1.1

Figure 1.0

Figure 2.0

Figure 3.0

Fig. 3.1

Figure 4.0

Figure 5.0

References

Association of American Medical Colleges. "Taking the MCAT® Exam." AAMC

Students, Applicants and Residents. N.p., 14 Dec. 2016. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

Drake, Nadia. "Seven Alien 'Earths' Found Orbiting Nearby Star." National Geographic.

National Geographic Society, 22 Feb. 2017. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

Redish, Janice. “Letting Go of the Words.” Letting Go of the Words, 2nd ed., Morgan

Kaufmann, Waltham, MA, 2014, p. 3, 5, 18, 52-53, 59-60, 83, 134-135, 160.