Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of The NPPS Website

The purpose of this memo is to provide feedback about the effectiveness of the NPPS website, I will be using the textbook “Technical Communication” as a reference to address the content. The goal is to present my criticism for a further effect on the website.

Summary

It is challenging to create an effective website, therefore, I broke down my feedback into two sections: the positive feedback and the negative feedback. To provide the feedback I incorporated informative paragraphs, appropriate level of formality, adequate detail, designing a simple site, appropriate graphics, the effectiveness of color, informative links, transitional words, and lastly appropriate sentence length into the website.

Positive Feedback on the Website

Writing Clear, Informative Paragraphs

Paragraph lengths is a very important aspect because most of the audience won’t have time to read long paragraphs, they will skip over them, and might miss the main focus. Upon examining the website, the paragraph lengths are very well formatted, they consist of 3-4 sentences and contains topic sentences and supporting information.

Appropriate Level of Formality

It is crucial to know how to write to your audience, it all comes down to the main subject, According to Markel & Selber “You would write more formally about a serious subject such as safety regulations or important projects”. Under the Standards Tab, the content was written very formally, clear, specific, and has positive constructions.

Providing Adequate Detail

One of the many positives on this website is that it provides adequate details, the website provides enough content for readers to understand the subject and it is not vague. As I was reading the information under Injuries, It gave a list and the percentages of the different accidents that occurred on playground equipment, the list of the accidents was very helpful to understand which accidents occurred the most.

Designing a Simple Site

The website uses a simple white background and also uses conservative colors of black, white, and red to facilitate reading for the audience. Because the design is very simple it attracts and it’s easy to navigate.

Choosing the Appropriate Kind of Graphic

The pie graph shown under injuries is effective because it contains different colors and it’s very straightforward making it very easy to read and it also includes a key for the audience to follow through and holds their attention.

Using Color Effectively

The same color used on the tabs is effective as it groups them together and using one color creates a pattern the readers can recognize and know what it is. It is important not to overdo it because the readers can only interpret two-three colors at a time.

Informative Links

The website uses other direct links to avoid using that space in their website, that is very good because it can overwhelm the audience.

Negative Feedback on the Website

Lack on Transitional Words and Phrases

According to Markel & Selber “Transitional Words and phrases help the reader understand a discussion between two ideas”.

Under “Tips For Limiting Sun Exposure” the content provided is divided into five short paragraphs, however the paragraphs do not contain transitional words and phrases. For example, “Look at the size of the shadow (shade) that an object, such as a tree or building, provides at different times of the day. Shade is related to peak sun intensity hours. When the sun is low in the sky, the rays hitting an object make longer, larger shadows. When the sun is high in the sky, during peak sun intensity hours, shade areas are usually small. The best time to find large areas of shade is early in the morning or late in the afternoon. ”

Adding Transitional words in between the sentences will create a powerful paragraph, I would add “Furthermore” at the beginning of the second sentence, I would also include “In the other hand” at the beginning of the four sentence because the anterior sentence talked about the sun being low and the following sentence talks about the sun being high. Lastly, I would add “To conclude” at the beginning of the last sentence to finalize the paragraph. These transitional words will make the paragraph flow smoothly.

Choosing An Appropriate Sentence Length Paragraph from Playground Safety Week

“National Playground Safety Week is a time to focus on children's outdoor play envionments. A time to pledge to use good judgment when playing. A time for gratitude for all the adults who work tirelessly on maintaining our playgrounds. ” The problem here is that the sentence length is very short and contains too little information, I also noticed that there is a misspelled word and because of the sentence length and misspelled word the audience might critique the way the sentences are constructed rather than what the author is trying to say.

Create Clear, Informative Links

Unfortunately, I was confused on the fact that there’s three “Training Tabs” on the website, there’s one at the top of the page, another one on the left side, and the last one at the center of the bottom page. As an audience, I would question what is the difference between them and I would also assume that the author is desperate to get people into their training classes. To avoid this confusion part I would keep one tab, and put it on the top of the page.

Overall, the website is effective and slight changes are recommended for a more effective website. As an audience I was able to criticize your work and provide the improvements your website needs to fully satisfy the audience, I used the textbook “Technical Communication” as a reference to guide me into the criticism.