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An Analysis of the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program Website
With the increasing prevalence and controversy of issues with wild horses and burros, the
BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program has become increasingly popular, making design choices
vital to the efficacy of this website. The author of this website is the U.S. Department of the
Interior Bureau of Land Management and it was created with the purpose of educating the public
about mustangs and the functions of the National Wild Horse and Burro Program, especially as
they relate to these issues. This website functions well for this purpose; however, it lacks some
design features that could make it much more useful for people trying to find information about
these very prevalent and controversial issues. In this analysis, I examine the ways that design
choices in content organization, visual design, and navigation contribute to and detract from the
efficacy of the aims of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program website in addition to the three
artistic proofs of logos, ethos, and pathos.
First and foremost, since content is the backbone of every website, I will discuss content
organization and specifically how the way content is organized within this website detracts from
the aims of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program and its website. When looking at the home
page of the website, the audience is bombarded with several different sections of content and
four different navigation bars, making it difficult to determine what is most important and what
the aims of the program and website are. This becomes very important for the reader if they are
going to continue looking through the site.
After digging through the content, the first aim that stands out is to promote the adoption
of wild horses and burros. This can only be determine after the reader
scrolls about half way down the page to a “Popular Pages” navigation
column (indicated by the red box in the Figure 1 wireframe) that has
multiple links. A majority of the links have something to do with
adoption, having titles such as “FY 2014 Adoption Schedule,”
“Internet Adoptions,” “Adoption Program,” and “How to Adopt.”
The next aim that can be identified is to create awareness about the
problem regarding wild horse populations. Again, this aim must be
searched for and is deducted from the “Topics” navigation column
(blue). The topics of “Rangeland and Herd Management,”
“Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program,” “Science and Research,”
and “Advisory Board” indicate the aim of informing users about the wild horse population issue.
The third aim stems from the previous two aims and the overall purpose of the website: to
educate the public about the mustang and what the functions of the National Wild Horse and
Burro Program are. This aim is a good summary of all the content that can be found within this
Figure 1
website but is also not immediately obvious because of the lack of content organization and the
fact that the “About the Program” section (purple) is located nearly at the bottom of the page.
Despite there being ample information about adoption, issues surrounding wild horses,
and the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program itself, the placement and organization
of the navigation columns and content on the homepage does not serve the aim of
promoting these as well as they could. If the navigation columns instead were not
only placed in a more prominent location at the top of the page such as where the
“National” navigation column (green) is placed but also combined into one single,
cohesive navigation column, the content within this website would be much more organized.
Also, if other content on the homepage was organized and prioritized according to the
aims and what was most important to the program,
the homepage would not appear to be such an
overwhelming bombardment of information. For
example, a single Wild Horse and Burro Program
navigation bar should be placed at the top of the
page such as in Figure 2 (blue) as opposed to the
several navigation columns in Figure 2a, the
“About Program” section and “The Story of
America’s Wild Horses and Burros” educational
video should be closest to the top (purple), and the Wild Horse and Burro Program logo (yellow)
should appear closer to the top of the page. These changes would highlight the most important
information, allowing users to read through the information more efficiently because of the better
Figure 2 Figure 2a
Figure 1a
organized content and navigation bars, reducing the risk that readers would lose motivation to
continue looking through the website if they didn’t immediately find what they were looking for.
Because of the controversial and emotional issues surrounding the BLM Wild Horse and
Burro Program, I will next discuss how this lends the visuals used within this website great
potential to have a profound effect on the pathos that the audience encounters yet how the visual
design of this website does not fulfill this potential. There are some good examples of visual
design such as on the homepage in the picture slide
show where it says “Adopt a Living Legend” and has
a picture of a man with his adopted mustang. Shown
in Figure 3, this is emotionally appealing in that it
shows a man interacting with this “living legend”
which is an inspiring concept in itself. However, there should be more examples of this within
the website. The mustang and the challenges involved around the mustang can be a very
emotional issue, especially when talking about topics such as overpopulation, starvation, and
slaughter, but this element of pathos is not utilized to its fullest because of a lack of pictures to
convey how the mustang is a “living legend.”
A specific example of this poor visual design is that nearly all of the pages about
adoption lack any sort of visual at all as shown in Figure 4.
Adoption of a mustang or a burro is a very emotionally lifting
experience but there are no visuals to share this experience and
to show readers that they too could feel that way. Just a simple
search on Google brought up pictures of happy people who had
adopted mustangs—pictures that they could have used in their website. Better yet, they could
Figure 3
Figure 4
have used pictures like Figure 5 from their “Adoption Stories” links in order to make an
emotional appeal to prospective adopters. In addition to the lack of visual design affecting
pathos, the lack of visuals is also less engaging for the reader.
Glenda Rakes, author of “Teaching Visual Literacy in a
Multimedia Age,” explains that PET scans of the brain
support the idea that “the use of visuals with text can provide
that dual code that can, in turn, increase comprehension”
(Rakes, 14-15). Not only does no one like to read a page entirely composed of text, but the
reader is less engaged in the message and is likely to completely miss any textual appeal to
pathos.
With a closer look at the pages within this site, visual design also detracts from the
logical flow of information throughout this site because of the lack of consistency in layout.
When visiting any website, it is standard for a consistent layout to be used because, visually, it is
easier to follow. This means navigation bars and logos always appear in the same place but this
is not the case with the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program
website. First of all, when going from the homepage to other
pages within the site, the four original navigation bars that were
on the homepage suddenly dwindle down to only two original
and one brand new navigation bar. Also on these pages, the
location of the new navigation bar periodically changes from one
spot above the program logo (Figure 6) to another spot below the
logo (Figure 6a). This inconsistent visual design makes it
confusing to the audience as they switch from one page to the next. Overall, this lack of logical
Figure 5
Figure 6Figure 6a
flow within this website on top of a lack of emotional appeals for very emotional issues
demonstrates the significant impact that visual design has in detracting from the efficacy of this
website.
Finally, I will discuss how the process of navigating this website has positive features
when it comes to ethical appeals but is not as efficient as it could be when it comes to logical
appeals. Because there are few links to outside sources, any links that are clicked on usually take
the user to another page within the website. This circular pattern of links reinforces the fact that
the U.S. Department of the Interior BLM is the original
source of the information which helps build credibility with
the audience in that they know the information is accurate
because it is coming from a government entity; however, this
also creates a bit of redundancy in supporting information.
There is a lot of repetition of links within different pages
which may take the user back to a page they’ve already seen
multiple times. This also makes it hard to find a clear, linear
way to navigate the website in a manner that ensures the user
can find all of the information provided.
Unfortunately, this is exacerbated by the fact that
there are so many different navigation columns a reader can
use to navigate the website, making it difficult to ensure that
the reader has stumbled upon every piece of available
information. Figure 7 shows the sitemap for the website and, as indicated by the repeating colors
(not including black), links to pages show up multiple times but with different pathways to them.
Figure 7
For example, the light pink link for “State Office Links” appears three times within the sitemap.
This displays the redundancy of the “State Offices” link. This is not even a complete sitemap of
this website because it would be impossible to make a sitemap that would even fit on this page
due to the navigational complexities of this website.
One last feature that adds to the navigational complexities of this site is how links,
especially those for official supporting documents, are incorporated within text instead of having
their own navigation column. Take for example the “History and Facts” page which has a link to
the “Wild Free-Roaming Horses and
Burros Act of 1971” within the text shown in Figure 8. This is a very important supporting
document for this program that provides an appeal to logos for this website but a reader would
only find this link if they were to read this “History and Facts” page. This becomes problematic
since there is no column anywhere in the website designated solely for supporting documents
like this so the probability that a reader will stumble across these very important documents
within the text is left to chance.
Overall, the design choices of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program in content
organization, visual design, and navigation greatly influence the incorporation of their aims and
appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Content organization displays a lack of prioritization of
information and a cohesive navigation bar which makes the aims of the program and website
difficult to determine. Additionally, there are some visual appeals to emotion, but overall, the
visual design choices detract from appeals to ethos and logos due to the insufficiency of visuals
to portray the emotional aspects of the program and the lack of a consistent layout to guide use of
the website. Finally, the navigation choices emphasize credibility but fail to provide a logical and
comprehensive way to navigate the website. Because of this, the total impact of the website and
Figure 8
its message doesn’t reach its full potential, yet the general purpose of the website to educate the
public about the mustang and the National Wild Horse and Burro Program is still served.
Works Cited
National Wild Horse and Burro Program. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2014, from
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/whbprogram.html
Rakes, G.C. (1999). Teaching visual literacy in a multimedia age. Tech Trends, 43(4), 14-15.