User Experience and Design

CirrusMD User Experience and Design

The telemedicine website, CirrusMD, has an elegant, modern design and an intuitive user experience. It is one of my favorite websites because I adore the Twitter Bootstrap framework that it is built on, which allows for the sleek design and enjoyable interactivity. The interactive elements of the Boostrap framework, such as swiping, make visitors feel like they are engaged. Having content open within the same frame rather than redirect visitors to a separate page also prevents distraction. The simplicity of the website mirrors the purpose of the service: to make it easy to see a doctor by using videochat. A visitor’s eye is immediately drawn to the large picture of a patient booking an online session with a doctor because it takes up 60% of the page. This allows visitors to instantly grasp how simple it is to arrange an appointment without needing to use too much text to convey this.

MyAutismTeam User Experience and Design

I love MyAutismTeam because it uses technology to help parents of children with autism build a social network with other parents and read reviews of providers in a Yelp-like fashion. The navigation bar has the largest text on the website to draw visitors’ attention to it. The different sections are well-organized in the navigation bar, enabling a simple user experience. On the Find Parents page, the grid arrangement of different users makes it easy to find other parents to talk to. The Pinboard enables parents to visually share their stories. It is worth noting that as a visitor scrolls down, the “feedback” button remains fixed at the left, making it easy for MyAutismTeam to collect data during their beta testing. I would suggest that the “Get Started” link be placed in the top right corner of the website rather than at the end of the navigation bar because a new visitor might not notice it. A blue and white color scheme rather than blue, white, and green may be more soothing. Overall, the website is using user experience design to provide an extraordinary solution to an important problem.

TheWeek User Experience and Design

The Week is my favorite news resource not only because of the quality of its articles but also because it organizes news by speed reading (quick reads) and most popular news items. This makes it simple for busy people to efficiently decide what to read. I especially like how the website accompanies many article titles with pictures, making it possible to skim for topics of interest without having to read any text. Because there is a significant amount of content on the website, it would improve the design to remove some of the many ads. Also, it would make more sense to place the email newsletter signup form higher on the page in case a visitor does not scroll down so low. Other advertisements are more noticeable than promotions for the magazine version of The Week, yet it is unclear whether this is intentional or not.