different tools Michele can use to help her father plan physical ac-tivity and track his food intake.” (p. 9).

The directions are helpful, and easy to use. They even suggest howa librarian might help a patron print materials and take them home.The librarian or library staff audience for this is clearly not medical li-brarians, who would likely point patrons to MedlinePlus or PubMedfrom the National Libraries of Medicine. Such search engines, howev-er, are likely to return articles and other materials unsuitable for low-literate patrons, and non-medical experts. Thus Healthfinder® meetsa need for patrons without high literacy skills, and without extensivehealth literacy as well educating library professionals and helpingthem prepare to meet patron needs.

Healthfinder® is a consumer and librarian-friendly website and isa good resource for individuals seeking general information about anenormous range of health topics.

References

2010 ClearMark AwardWinners | Center for Plain Language. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24,2012, from http://centerforplainlanguage.org/awards/past-years/clearmark2010/

Accessibility: healthfinder.gov — your source for reliable health information. (n.d.). Re-trieved February 24, 2012, from http://healthfinder.gov/aboutus/accessibility.aspx

Foreign language resources: health A–Z resources and publications. (n.d.). Retrieved Feb-ruary 24, 2012, from http://healthfinder.gov/scripts/SearchContext.asp?topic=326

Fox, S. (2011). The social life of health information, 2011 | Pew Research Center's Inter-net & American Life Project. Retrieved February 24, 2012, from. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Life-of-Health-Info.aspx

Introduction— healthfinder.gov tutorial: introduction to your source for reliable healthinformation. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2012, from http://www.healthfinder.gov/tutorial/librariantutorial/Introduction/page1.htm

Smith, A. (2010). Home Broadband 2010 | Pew Internet & American Life Project. Re-trieved February 24, 2012, from. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Home-Broadband-2010/Summary-of-Findings.aspx

Alison ReganE-mail address: alison.regan@utah.edu

doi:10.1016/j.giq.2012.02.004

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 1600 Clifton Rd.Atlanta, GA 30333. Retrieved February 24, 2012, from http://www.cdc.gov/.

1. Introduction

When the Obama administration issued the open governmentdirective in 2009, the mandate was interpreted in many ways bydifferent government agencies. Some simply followed the mandateto the letter and published data sets previously unpublished, whileothers took the opportunity to create new dimensions of innovativeapproaches to the ways in which government was available to citizensand the potential of e-government to streamline information and ser-vices to the American people in a more efficient, usable, user-friendlyway.

Among the best examples of e-government in the current digitalenvironment is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,which can be accessed at CDC.gov. This website review will evaluatethe agencies webpage based on usability criteria found in David Baker'spaper Advancing e-government performance in the United States throughenhanced usability benchmarks, in which he employs Stowers' usabilitybenchmarks. Baker asserts, referencing a PEW study on broadbandaccess in the U.S., that while 73% of American adults are online, only29% who contact the government do it via e-government becausemany agency sites have put marginal effort into website usability(Baker, 2009).

2. Online services

“Online services refer to those tasks that may be accomplished bycontacting an E-government website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,via the internet (Baker, 2009, p. 83).” The CDC offers a wide rangeof online services which users can access 24 h a day such as social net-working sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as health informationand lectures via YouTube, which are available for users to watch aswell as embed into their own blogs and websites. They also offerRSS feeds, podcasts, and a range of information delivery, includingup to the minute health alerts to mobile devices which may includeinformation such as seasonal flu's, H1N1 updates, public health emer-gencies, global infectious outbreaks for travelers, as well as naturaldisaster alerts.

One of the more impressive features of the CDC is the newlyadded use of Widgets: “A widget is a CDC.gov application that dis-plays the featured content directly on your webpage. You canembed content in personalized home pages, blogs, and other sites.Once you've added the widget, there's no technical maintenance.CDC.gov will update the content automatically” (http://www.cdc.gov/widgets/). There is also an easy to use Google icon which linksthe chosen widget to a specific users Google homepage. What isequally impressive to the amount of information available to usersbased on their specific interests is the ease with which this informa-tion can be linked to user websites or blogs. Users only have to cutand paste the html code provided into a specific webpage or blogand they immediately begin receiving up to the minute informationon chosen topics without having to maintain these transactions inany way.

Another feature worthy of mention at CDC.gov is CDC WONDERwhich is a data set tool available for health care professionals andthe public at large. The acronym stands for Wide-ranging OnlineData for Epidemiological Research and it is designed to provide an“easy-to-use, menu-driven system that makes the information re-sources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) avail-able to public health professionals and the public at large. It providesaccess to a wide array of public health information” (http://wonder.cdc.gov/).

What users encounter when utilizing CDC WONDER is anotherresource which has been carefully built and aimed towards userfriendliness. The complexities of data set availability and data setcustomization have been configured on the back end so that whatthe user experiences on the front end are tools which allow for easynavigation and use of extremely complicated tasks. For instance,WONDER is able to:

• Access statistical research data published by CDC, as well as refer-ence materials, reports and guidelines on health-related topics;

• Query numeric data sets on CDC's computers, via “fill-in-the blank”webpages. Public-use data sets about mortality (deaths), cancerincidence, HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, vaccinations, natality (births),census data and many other topics are available for query, and therequested data are readily summarized and analyzed, with dynami-cally calculated statistics, charts and maps.

Lastly, but certainly not exhausting the immense amount of onlineservices, is the design of an A–Z index which is offered on nearlyevery page a user might click on. As users navigate the site thisindex can be used to either bring them back to the main page (thoughusers may also click on the CDC logo at the top of the page to return tothe main) or as a way of arriving at specific topics, services, or infor-mation the user might be searching for. In addition, when users clickon diseases and conditions they are offered another a–z index whichfunctions as a subset of the index on the main page. The author of thisreview chose these three aspects of online services – everyday user'stools like socialmedia and othermultimedia sources, the use ofwidgets,and CDC WONDER – because they exhibit the strength of the sites

304 Student Reviews

usability features in a sort of multidimensional set of skills and featuresoffered by the website. An impressive fact of the design of CDC.gov isthat regardless of whether users are seeking to use social networking,multimedia tools, employing the use of widgets to broadcast healthinformation via their own blogs or webpages, or higher level task,such as personalized creation of health related data sets, the CDC offersusers highly usable website functions that is in highly usable formats.The CDC has created online services in such a way as to serve the publicand undermine and address many of the challenges facing users whomay lack many of the skills necessary to gain access to services andinformation they may need.

3. User-help

Baker (2009) defines this dimension as a set of tools that offer auser guidance and context, such as the ability to e-mail for assistance,a site manager, a frequently asked questions (FAQ) feature, or for-eign language options. In the case of the CDC site, the Spanish-language version of the site appears to provide all English-languagecontent, and it is also available through a well-positioned link inthe upper right hand corner of the home page. In addition, if usersscroll to the bottom of the home page they will find a link labeled‘languages’ in which they are taken to a page labeled ‘most common-ly spoken languages in the United States’. The page translates the siteinto 9 of themost common languages in the U.S. but if users glance tothe bottom of the page there are many more language options, 22 intotal.

In terms of contacting the site with user questions, this CDC fea-ture goes far beyond the typical webpage form and offers users away to granulate searches and contact question to very specificissues and problems. When users scroll to the bottom of the homepage they will find a clearly labeled ‘contact CDC’ link. When thislink is clicked on users are brought to a page where they are onceagain offered the option to use the A-Z index, in hopes that theymight find sought after information and services on their own beforeadvancing into the help form. If this does not solve the users' dilem-ma, two categories are available on the page; Report and Emergencyand All Other Topics. If users, say, choose all other topics they aregiven yet another categorical menu to choose from to further limitthe nature of inquiry. If a user clicks on the ‘health’ option they areasked to limit the search further by choosing the specific nature ofthe topic. Finally at the bottom of the page is a ‘try these pages’ box,where suggestions are generated based on the categorical choicesmade up to this point. Finally, if users are still in need of assistancethey can submit the form.

4. Navigation aids

Navigation refers to the ability to move about particular web-sites, which includes the range of drop down menus, alphabeticalindexes and menus, links to related offices and agencies, “what'snew” pages and posted press releases. Again, CDC utilizes the A–Z index and a very esthetically pleasing slideshow appears at thetop of the homepage, highlighting current features, programs,and news around the world relating to health. There are also linkto widgets, as well as other multimedia tools and link to datasets and global priority health information such as naturaldisasters.

In conclusion the CDC passes and surpasses the usability cri-teria and perhaps any criteria which may be thought of. It hasput a great deal of time and resources into making government in-formation available, reliable and usable in broad range of ways.This review touched on several of the online services available atthe CDC, but to fully appreciate the breadth and quality of this siteand to gain an understanding of what e-government, at its best, is ca-pable of, visit CDC.gov.

Reference

Baker, D. L. (2009). Advancing e-government performance in the United Statesthrough enhanced usability benchmarks. Government Information Quarterly,26(1), 82–88.

Kim LarsonE-mail address: klarson1@umd.edu

doi:10.1016/j.giq.2012.02.003

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), U.S. Department ofEducation. 400 Maryland Ave, SW,Washington, DC 20202. RetrievedFebruary 23, 2012, from http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/.

According to usability.gov, a general definition of usability is “howwell users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and howsatisfied they are with that process” (http://usability.gov/basics/index.html). In that definition, there are measures of usability within a singlesystem. Usability.gov enumerates thesemeasures as the following: easeof learning, efficiency of use, memorability, error frequency and severi-ty, and subjective satisfaction. To truly understand if a system is usableor not, it is not enough to just concentrate on onemeasure, but rather tolook at the overall usability across a range of areas. Do all these mea-sures work together in order to make a usable system for the enduser? The tie between usability and librarianship is that we as informa-tion professionals want good, usable systems that achieve the intendedpurposes and goals of the technology and/or service. Often with webresources, the purpose gets lost behind poor navigation bars and ill-conceived layouts, effectively creating barriers to accessing the informa-tion, services, and content for the end-user or the information profes-sional attempting to assist the user.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) website isrun under the Department of Education. Its purpose is to provide stu-dent financial aid to both undergraduate and graduate students toaccredited universities by preparing an annual form online, or lesstypically through paper. FAFSA is fraught with numerous usability is-sues on multiple measures. This review analyzes FAFSA's usabilityalong the dimensions of efficiency of use, error frequency and sever-ity, and subjective satisfaction.

1. Usability summary

The general content for the site is housed at fafsa.ed.gov withseparate portals at pin.ed.gov and federalstudentaid.ed.gov. Thesites together work to bring access to the users for student loans,the federal loan for student aid, and scholarships, and a PIN to sub-mit the FAFSA. For interactive features, there is a data center on theschools that participate with FAFSA, there is the online applicationitself, scholarship sites, and a feature to find out when the FAFSAis due by institution. It is also worth noting that the main page offafsa.ed.gov is for the application only, and that there is no prefaceto the application. The user has no choice but to immediately startthe application to get more information. Though the site containsbasic information regarding application deadlines and the abilityto find federal school codes, one needs to use federalstudentaid.ed.gov to find information regarding financial aid. To register for aPIN, the user is taken to pin.ed.gov. While all housed under the ed.gov site, there is no sense of continuity or purpose for the user,thus lessening overall usability.

The site automatically assumes a level of web sophistication inthe construction of the site, which is counter-intuitive consideringthe mission of Federal Student Aid under the Department to makeeducation accessible for all. There are links to other house sites, al-beit in pop-up windows, that reduce usability. There is no

305Student Reviews