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.