In light of the recent website evaluations we discussed in class and to compliment the subject I discussed in yesterday’s blog post, I thought I would do a review on a sexual information website for teens. I will first make a few comments about RAMP, the Toronto Public Library’s teen webspace. The second part of my post will review Spiderbytes, a sexual information site for teenagers recommended by RAMP.
Links to sexual health information are listed in the “life stuff” section of the website. Considering that the search function in RAMP is not very good (I actually couldn’t get it to work at all and kept getting error messages), “life stuff” is not necessarily an intuitive place to look. The importance of sexual health and young adults’ curiosity about sex justify better labeling and a more direct link to this information.
I think the sex information links in RAMP could be organized better in general, particularly since the different pages lead to many (if not all of the same links). I could go on critiquing this site but I think we already discussed it enough in class.
Spiderbytes was created by Planned Parenthood of Toronto, a community based, pro-choice agency.
Besides its terrible name (what exactly does Spiderbytes mean?), Spiderbytes’ design is lacking in usability. I think the design goal was to be different and attractive and although it achieves that, it is not great to use because you have to figure things out. Although the persistent navigation is consistent, you have to scroll over the buttons in order for labels to appear. Additionally, there are two persistent navigation bars/icon groups, which is disorienting and confusing to the user. The main navigation bar, housing information about sex, relationships, puberty, etc., leads to pages that look blank until you figure out that the little lists on the right-hand side of the pages are links that you have to click on to have the information appear in the center of the page. The font size here is way too small. Perhaps a young adult would find this design refreshing and enjoy exploring how the site works (I venture to guess that may have been the goal of the designers), but Jakob Neilsen, the usability expert, would disagree. Neilsen reports that studies of teen website use reveal their patience levels and attention span to be even lower then that of adults. If a user is looking to quickly access information, they would not be able to on this site.
However, the site does score some positive points with its design. It is not too busy or flashy with a lot of distracting animations. It does not require a lot of scrolling and does not use colours that bother the eyes. Rather the design is quite simple and clean, if not conventional and intuitive. Additionally, it contains interactive elements such as quizzes. For instance, in the “puberty” section, teens can fill out quizzes about getting hairy and periods. These short multiple choice quizzes test the knowledge of users and provide information (and answers) in an engaging way. Another good example is in the “sex” and “virginity” section where teens can take a quiz to let them know if they are ready to lose their virginity.
Thus the site offers great content. When I was a teenager we didn’t have access to this type of information, in this format. I think it would have been kind of cool to explore sexual health information through interactive, online quizzes. The inclusion of sexuality and sexual orientation in the content is also important and useful. The inclusion of disability issues is great but these are located in the “sexuality” section which is probably not the first place that people would look for this information. Although the information is generally straightforward and succinct in the main sections of the website, links to clinics, phone lines, etc, are located in a small pop-up window that requires a lot of scrolling. This information is thus not very accessible in terms of the website’s ease of use.
The site provides very informative content in an interactive and interesting way, but the design is ineffective and impractical, taking away from the overall experience. It is a good example of the ways in which information providers sometimes defeat their own purpose and put up unintentional barriers to accessibility. It is important for librarians to be aware of these issues and to critically evaluate the information tools they provide to their community.
Although Planned Parenthood of Toronto is a very reputable and authoritative community health organization, if the city’s public library is compelled to include a link to this site, I would recommend they ensure links to websites with more usable designs as well. As it stands, RAMP does not offer links to more then four sexual health websites in total. If I was a teenager (maybe not the best way to make this judgement… ) and clicking through all the links led to sites that looked and worked like Spiderbytes, I would likely leave the library site and look for more straightforward information elsewhere.
Posted in Accessibility, Barriers/Access to Information, Health Information, Public libraries, Reviews and Reviewing, Teen Content Creators, Teen Spaces 
