The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched their new website. It has some great features, but you'll be overwhelmed by a torrent of information and won't be able to find them. Our advice...... get those features front and center and please drop the CDC.gov Tour, it is terrible.
CDC obviously spent alot of money and time trying to design their website. There are some great features based on a 1 minute scan of the home page:
1) A CDC Tag Cloud
2) The Top 20 at CDC.gov
3) CDC A-Z Index,
3) Tools and Resources that I can use
Unfortunately they are either hidden or not entirely obvious to a user. Now some of you may say that I only spent 1 minute on the website. All true, but I'm a user and I have other things to do with my time. CDC has to either grab my attention or I'm gone. That's just the way it is and I make no apologies for that. BTW, that pie chart about health and exercise did grab my attention.
Wish List
CDC should let the above features do some of the heavy lifting on the home page. You really don't need all of those health and safety topics either. Also the About CDC and CDC for You elements on the home page are well below the fold and not all that useful. Now for the specifics:
1) By far the coolest feature that I think could do web users the most good is the CDC.Gov Tag Cloud. Unfortunately, it is well below the fold and no one is going to see it. I looked for it because some one told me it was there. Get that cloud well above the fold and illustrate it even if you have to create a mini cloud. The popularity of the tags illustrated by their size will be obvious once a user gets there. It will also focus users on your most popular content. Also, you should promote whoever thought of that cloud.
2) The Top 20 at CDC.gov feature is embedded in the Search and CDC A-Z Index. It's very confusing. Please make the Top 20 feature front and center. Also let it stand entirely apart from the CDC A-Z Index and Search box. I don't care what your usability testes showed.
Also, I start to type "neck pain" and I'm taken to the index. That's not very obvious and sought of threw me off. Oh, I should have taken the CDC.gov tour first you say. Thanks but I will pass.
3) Wow, you all love the color blue. Problem is that for me at least, it masks things and makes them difficult to see. Separate the Search frrom the CDC A-Z index or have some instructions that say " either enter a word in the search box or press any letter on the keyboard to go to that subject area. The typewriter gives one the impression that they'll be able to type in a word.
Right above the Search button, you have a rotating gif of different languages. Some color or a flag of th country might attract more interest. Again, the blue gets in the way.
4) The Tools and Resources web page had some very nice features like the BMI calculator, immunization and growth charts, etc. Try to highlight them.
Closing Thoughts
Don't be disappointed or upset by my comments. Remember, I'm a user and I'm entitled. The real challenge will be to see if other users behave as I did and did not spend alot of time on your website. In the end it really doesn't mater what I say and besides it will take too much time and money to find out if I have a point. Thing of my wish list as sugguestions with CDC's web users as the final jury.
To get the pulse of the CDC web users, I sugguest that you focus on user behavior by monitoring the bounce rates and some other metrics of the top 10 webpages to gage how successful the redesign is. I talk about it under a recent post entitled Who cares what web users want, what they do is what matters . Good luck and thanks for incorporating that Cloud tag into the website. Tom
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