A person needs to have an in-depth understanding of psychological information before embarking on the process of reading and reviewing information on the web. The learner should consider taking down some notes. These notes should reflect those items that he/she agrees with and those that he/she is opposed to. In addition, a person should consider having in place a list of technical terms related to the topic which might be easily forgotten.
In order to gain a thorough understanding of the information, it is advisable to carry out further research by perusing other sources of information such as journals and psychological textbooks. The insight gained by the learner from these activities will enable him to either condemn or support the information he/she is evaluating. The learner should review the existing facts later on. Having done that, the individual should be in a position to comprehend all the details pertaining to the information being evaluated and should be thoroughly informed in regard to the information that was handed over to him and that which he/she has to find on his/her own. Finally, the learner should take into account those parts of information that he/she feels were left out from initial information that had been handed over to him (Freeman 152).
Through the juxtaposition of two websites related to some psychological condition, namely schizophrenia, this article will endeavor to bring out the fundamentals behind a website that successfully fulfills its purpose of supplying the learner with relevant information that is both valid and credible. This objective can be achieved best through close analysis of several criteria used to evaluate psychological websites listed below.
Name of Site: Internet Mental Health
Date: January 29, 2012
URL: www.mentalhealth.com
Time: 8.00 – 10.30 a.m.
By: Phillip W. Long, M.D.
Name of Site: Schizophrenia.com
Date: January 29, 2012
URL: www.schizophrenia.com
Time: 8.00 – 10.30 a.m.
By: Tides Center.
Criteria used include
The First Impressions
Both websites have URLs that are intuitive making it easier to recall. To reinforce this value, they are both short and simple. This gives a professional impression that helps attract a client’s interest.
There is a difference in download time in that Schizophrenia.com takes relatively less time to download compared to the internet mental health website. This is a setback for the internet mental health website which apparently carries more reliable and credible information compared to the other site. The site, though attractive, has hidden graphics that increase its homepage size making it download at a slower speed.
Schizophrenia.com is well designed thereby leaving the reader with the urge of wanting to learn more from the site. On the other hand, internet mental health, though much attractive due to its clever usage of colors and graphics, tends to wear out the clients as they have to wait for PDFs to download when most of its links are clicked.
Both sites do not have immediate contact details on the homepage though on delving deeper, the details, which can be obtained, help in creating user’s trust and confidence. Schizophrenia.com does allow to use registration for newsletters, thereby creating an interactive environment; this might, however, not appeal to some clients who are only interested in immediate information.
Navigation
Schizophrenia.com has a navigation system that allows easier access to information compared to internet mental health. The latter apart from its tendency of heavy use of PDF’s which is time-consuming also has links that are not relevant to Schizophrenia, e.g. the hyperlink on the US national debt. Moreover, returning to the homepage for Schizophrenia.com surfers is much easier compared to internet mental health.
Content
With regard to content, there are several key issues pertinent to the evaluation of the effectiveness of a website. These include the usefulness of the information. The use of fancy graphics at the expense of requisite information is evident in internet mental health websites as opposed to schizophrenia.com. The use of graphics, animation and sound should not either diminish the value of a website in any way or reduce the performance of website. Clearly, schizophrenia.com scores high in regard to the foregoing issues.
A closer look at the criteria discussed above reveals that both websites are good though there is a tradeoff between them in terms of navigability and content. Whereas Schizophrenia.com is fairly navigable compared to internet mental health, it does not contain elaborate information related to schizophrenia in comparison to the latter. Therefore, the ideal website for a user looking for specific information related to schizophrenia would be Schizophrenia.com whereas anyone looking for additional information would be recommended to visit the internet mental health website.
Internet mental health website suffers from three major setbacks, namely the design of the website which makes it cumbersome for the users to get back to the homepage after visiting some links and it is not easy for the visitor to find information on the site. Also, the content of the website includes links that are not pertinent to schizophrenia, like the U.S. debt clock, and finally, the use of lots of graphics makes it load relatively slower compared to Schizophrenia.com.
Bibliography
Freeman, Thomas. Chronic Schizophrenia. New York: International Universities Press, 1958. Print.