Website Critique - Population Connection

Timothy Mills
http://www.inajar.net/351/critiques/popconnect.html

Introduction

Population Connection, http://www.populationconnection.org/, formerly ZPG (Zero Population Growth), is a non-profit organization (specifically a 501(c)3) based in Washington, DC working to balance population growth with the Earth's resources. Population Connection has addressed many issues related to population over the last 35 years, and most recently has focused on reproductive rights for women and the impact that protecting those rights has on the environment.

Audience/Purpose

Like most non-profit, advocacy organizations, Population Connection addresses multiple audiences with their site. The site even gives teachers, advocates, campus activists, and the media their own specialized sections. Just looking at these groups it is obvious that the audience of the site is a diverse group of individuals with perhaps little more in common than a desire to learn about and help achieve Population Connection's goals. While Population Connection has done a good job of addressing the core groups that make up their audience, I think that a fifth core group exists in their potential audience: legislators and their staff. As the former webmaster for a non-profit, advocacy organization I know that we were always concerned (even if it was at a secondary level) with how the messages on our website would be interpreted by legislators or legislative staff who might be looking to our website as a resource. Population Connection does not address this group directly (as it does the four groups mentioned earlier), but the writing does seem to reflect an understanding that this fifth group could be reading the site. While it might be nice to see a section devoted to legislators and their staff (like the other sections for teachers, etc.), I would assume that because of the various limits placed on lobbying for 501(c)3 groups Population Connection chose to address legislators directly in other ways.

Information Architecture/Navigation

The Population Connection website seems to be divided into five main sections based upon the main navigation links on the homepage: Learn More, Take Action, Join or Give, Education, Legislation. Of these five sections the first three are subdivided into three sections each. A simplified outline of the site might look like this:

Just looking at the main section titles does not always give a clear idea of what I should expect to find in that section. For example, I would not necessarily expect to find a listing of the programs that Population Connection runs under the "Take Action" section.

Turning to navigation, the same navigation header is used through most of the site. The header consists of the Population Connection logo in the left corner of the header (about 20% the width of the entire header). Next to the logo are tab-like buttons for the five main sections of the site. Each of these buttons expands downward to reveal a menu with the sub-sections found in each section. The remainder of the width of the header (about 15%) is home to a search dialog box. Below this is a smaller (vertically) area devoted to utility like links (home, about, contact, site map) and current population estimates for both the world and the United States. Additionally the homepage features a box in the right-hand column with links and short descriptions of the content of those links for the four core groups in the audience that I described above. One nice design touch on the homepage related to navigation is the use of the same pale yellow color for the background of the main section buttons and the background of the box with links for the core audience groups. This detail helps to separate the navigation from the rest of the page.

The main section pages that have subsections (Learn More, Take Action, Join or Give) are nothing more than portal pages with links to each of the subsections and brief descriptions of those subsections. Of course these pages also contain the standard navigation header found on the homepage.

Most of the subsection pages are "organized" as lists of links to other pages in that subsection. For example, the Programs page is a list of links to the various programs that Population Connection runs with a brief description of each. While this style is very efficient and standard for listing large numbers of links, it leaves something to be desired aesthetically. I much prefer the "Learn More" and "Take Action" boxes found on the homepage, which are set off with colored backgrounds and make use of multiple columns to present their information.

In my opinion, the Population Connection site is not the easiest to use. Without mousing over the main navigation buttons I would not know where to find things like the programs that the organization runs. And even after looking at the names of the subsections I do not know exactly where I should go to find certain information; for example, what is the difference between "Fact Sheets" and "Factoids" (both found under "Learn More"). And while I appreciate links provided for the core audience groups, it seems as if this feature was added at the end of the site design rather than something that was considered from the beginning of the design.

Usability

Most of the usability issues (unclear navigation, muddied design, etc.) that I have with the site have been voiced by others that I have observed using the site. Most users have a difficult time deciding where to go first when presented with the main navigation buttons. Perhaps most surprisingly, my girlfriend, who works for Population Connection, has trouble finding things on the site.

Design

In comparison to many non-profit, advocacy organizations, Population Connection has a well designed website. Each of the elements on the page is distinct and separate from the other elements of the page (e.g. the navigation is clearly separated from the site content). While the site is better than most non-profit sites that I have visited it does have a few design problems. One that I noticed throughout the site is an inconsistency in link colors. Some links are rendered in a light blue color taken from the Population Connection logo, while others are rendered in the default blue link color. While I have no problem with using the default colors for links (this has many advantages and disadvantages) I think it is a poor choice to mix link styles, especially on the same page. Another major design issue I have with the site is the simple list of links prevalent on so many of the subsection pages. Like I said earlier, these lists are rather efficient ways of making all of Populations Connection's content available to the users of the sites the lists don't really look that good. Beyond the aesthetics of long lists of links, the lists on the Population Connection pages sometimes complicate navigating through the site. A user presented with such long lists of links will have to work harder to find the link that will take her to the content that she is most interested in. One way to alleviate this problem would be to redesign the subsection pages to look more like the "Learn More" and "Take Action" boxes on the homepage that I described earlier. Another possible step to take would be to separate content by year. For example, the publications page is a list of publications that Population Connection has made since 1999. I think users would have an easier time choosing the publications that they are interested in if this page only presented one year's worth of links at a time with links to previous years publications on another page. One final issue is the implementation of the menus in the navigation header. The first three menus function as I would expect, a list of links appears below each of these three buttons when moused over. However, the last two buttons ("Education" and "Legislation") reveal one item with a brief description. The inconsistency weakens the choice of using menus as the main navigation scheme.

Quality/Appropriateness of Writing

The text on Population Connection's website is generally error free, though not completely error free. The writing also seems to consistently reflect the focus and mission of the organization. With these things in mind I would say that the writing on the Population Connection website is on par with the writing at other non-profit, advocacy organization sites. However, the presence of errors and multiple voices sometimes distracts from the message of the organization. While this is a relatively rare occurrence on the site, it should still be fixed.

The Big Picture

Overall, the Population Connection website is a valuable presence for the organization to maintain. The site is home to an abundance of great content related to population and the environment, even if sometimes that content is difficult to find. Even with some of the design issues that I have pointed out I believe that Population Connection has created a successful online presence.