MSF Home Page Screen Shot

Here you can see the simple, clear and easy to navigate MSF home page. Note the minimalistic design and use of red to highlight important areas.

Interface Design of MSF

One striking and effective element on the Medecins Sans Frontieres’ web site is the use of large colourful, occasionally changing images; images that are highlighted by the minimal colour used elsewhere on the site. Humans absorb the information in images quicker that they would with words, therefore by implementing this strategy users can accurately and quickly navigate the site. In addition images evoke emotions, engaging the user. Medecins Sans Frontieres’ have used very small file sized .jpgs which allow the user quick access.

Another element that the MSF has used to its advantage is in designing a site where the layout is familiar to online users, a feature that is essential for a rich user experience. The logo is placed to the top left hand side, the information about the organisation is on the left, the interactive elements for the user to access are located on the right hand side of the page, the most recent news is located left of the centre and the search feature is top right. A handy design feature on secondary pages, is the menu to the left which allows you to choose another subcategory without going back a page. One element that is repeated more than once is the ‘donate’ link, which appears on the left menu, the user menu and on the bottom centre of page. Although a little overdone, it is the element the organization wants the user to access.

One criticism of the navigation is the number of very similar areas that could be combined into one section. For example, in the ‘from the field’ section the ‘field blogs’ could be amalgamated with ‘letters from the field’. Overall, however, the MSF navigation works effectively and the simple grey nondescript background with the #ff0000 red used sparingly to highlight important information, gives an understated yet professional finish to the site.

Overall Improvements to Medecins Sans Frontieres

These are the recommendations so far

• include a comments section at the bottom of all news / media articles to encourage users to have their say
• include links to sites that will enhance their site. For example 'get up' a political site that helps create social change.
• include a link to bookmark the site online to encourage other viewers. For Example 'de.li.cious
• include link to a sharing platform like 'digg' or 'newsvine' where the articles from MSF can be viewed by others, helping spread the news and optimize the MSF site. Users can also rank the MSF article on these platforms to raise it's profile.

Search Feature

MSF has a search and advance search function which is a feature of web 2.o sites. This enhances the site's usability as the user can find information quickly.

User Contribution Lacking

Although large amounts of 'information' can be accessed by the user by RSS, their is little the average user can do to contribute or publish ideas onsite. Although the field blog appears at first glance to be a blog, there is no evidence for membership to the blog or an area where any user can contribute their thoughts to the information. The blog contributors are all MSF volunteers or employees and it looks like the information is controlled by the author of the site.

There is therefore an opportunity for the organisation to include a blog for the user.

Currently the only way the user can actively contribute is to

• email their friends access to the refugee camp interactive game
• email someone a card
• email the organisation directly (this is not a web 2.0 feature)

E Card

A user can send an ecard to someone for free; this effectively promotes Medecine Sans Frontiers and personalises the experience for the user.

Not Many Links to Related Sites

MSF do not have many links that add value to their site. The only relevent one I can find so far is:

• google location maps to view the location of refugees who give testimonials onsite. see the page http://www.msf.org.au/refugeecamp/refugee-idp-testimonials/more-details/article/hy-from-thailand.html

Interactive Refugee Camp Game

Medecins Sans Frontiers site has an interactive game where the user can view a refugee camp from various workers perspectives. This allows a user to understand the types of work that is available and what might be expected of them if they volunteered with the organisation. During the game the user has a choice as to what decisions they would make in a given situation.

See: http://www.msf.org.au/rciyw/

RSS Feeds

Mececins Sans Frontiers home page features a slide show of news photos with corresponding news headlines on what the organisation is doing currently and what it has achieved. The user is encouraged to subscribe to the latest news by subscribing to the news by RSS Feed. This means the user will automatically recieve downloads of the updated news in the favourites folder.

The user can determine from the feed what types of news are displayed, how many items can be seen at once and the date range for articles listed.

The site has many sections that allow a user to subscribe to a feed of their interest. For example:

• news
• recruitment information evenings
• volunteer positions available
• jobs available
• events and special features
• MSF published academic papers and reports
• podcast of audio gallery
• podcast of video gallery
• podcast of photo gallery

What makes Medecins Sans Frontieres Site web 2.0?

Basically Web 2.0 is a platform where users can contribute to create a web site collaboratively. This differs from a regular website that provides information to a user with no additional interactive functionally.

Web 2.0 is a standard that many businesses and companies aspire to. Some sites are more 2.0 than others. One example of a Web 2.0 web site is Medecins Sans Frontieres. I would like anyone to view this web site and contribute their ideas on why this is a great or not so great web 2.0 site.

http://www.msf.org.au/

What consitutes a Web 2.0 site?

A quick summary

It looks like Tim OReilly of OReilly Media, highlighted the concept of Web 2.0 in 2004. Web 2.0 is not another version of the Web, it is simply a concept to describe the new improved way that software developers and users interact on the web, using it like a platform. In other words, developing a Web 2.0 site is the 'ideal', and understanding and including elements that make up this kind of site, is the goal.

It looks like some of those elements are

• users can use software applications that run through a browser


• user participation- users can customize information on the browser and add value to the browser


• often use an Ajax user friendly interface or client-server application frameworks that provide rich user experience


• dynamic content allowing scalability


• metadata (data about data)

Some features of these websites are:

• Search Functions


• Links to related areas


• Iterative (editing content), or cumulative (additive) authoring features for users


• Tags (to assist searching)


• Automation of some of the work


• RSS Really Simple Syndication - emails changes to users