Usability Of Grant Websites

Website usability is a widely explored area in the professional writing field, and many different types of websites have been analyzed for usability. However, grant websites have not been studied from this perspective. According to Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice (2010), a website’s usability centers around considerations of page layout, navigation, functional web design elements, pictures, and advertisements. This study explores how 2 items from this list – page layout and functional web design elements criteria -- are presented in two national grant websites, grants.gov and grantwatch.com, and two local grant websites, arc.gov and cfwnc.org. In this study, I attempt to find out how national and local grant websites differ in terms of usability. I found that usability is higher in the local grant websites according to the chosen criteria and that the functional web design elements criteria were non-problematic across all four websites.