.com Dish

Do you have a child who needs to spend some time in the hospital? Well then surf on over to KidsHealthGalaxy and see what you’re missing.

The people at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia understand this. They created the KidsHealthGalaxy site betting that a child’s visit here first will then make a visit to the hospital less scary.

KidsHealthGalaxy is an interactive website, designed to get a child involved in their hospital visit. Surfers are greeted by Joey, the intrepid kid narrator. Joey pilots a Jetsons-era aircraft. Click on one of three buttons on his control panel, and off he flies us to either the Hospital, the Medical Library, or to the Fun and Games tree house. Wherever one lands, your child will continue to make choices to advance through the entire destination. What’s nice about the site is that the choice options are built non-linearly, just like a child’s brain. Your child surfer may choose from a pull-down menu and pick a different area of the website to explore at any time. Sound effects also enhance all aspects of the surfing experience.

Another good feature on KidsHealthGalaxy is one called “Read to Me”. With the feature “on”, site surfers will hear the narration and also be able to read the supplied captions. With it in the “off” position, surfers can read the information at their own pace without distraction. This feature enhances site access for the hearing impaired. It’s also a wonderful parental control in the event the slightly helium-tinged character voices impair your own hearing.

The overall site experience is very positive. The designers did a great job of including all aspects of the hospital environment and the hospital stay in a friendly, approachable way. An example of this is in the “People You’ll Meet” area. Here janitors, security guards, even cafeteria cooks say hello and explain their roles to us. The inclusion of support staff emphasizes the integral part all hospital employees play in a patient’s well-being. This is in marked contrast to many “hospital” TV shows, where these same people are often just silent background extras or used in the occasional role as comic relief.

Another example of the care and consideration built into KidsHealthGalaxy is in the “Fun! & Games!” section. Here packing for a hospital stay is turned into a learning game. We learn not only what personal items are acceptable to bring to the hospital, but also why some things from home aren’t necessary to bring. As an adult, some of this information may seem like a given, but for a first-timer, this is particularly useful advice. The answers are just as informative for the adult as the child. Adults may deem some of the “comfort” items a child may want to carry along as inappropriate where in reality, the hospital encourages their inclusion; for instance, a child’s favorite blanket.

The site does what it is intended to do: demystify the complexities of the hospital experience, alleviate young patient anxiety, and put some fun into an otherwise stressful family event. Despite its good intentions, KidsHealthGalaxy does suffer from some minor handicaps:

The website was programmed in Macromedia Flash animation software. If you don’t have Flash 8 on your computer, you will have to download it first. Without it, you will be unable to surf the site at all. Site surfers who have earlier versions of Flash will also have to download the upgrade. Normally, web designers supporting a Flash-only site will provide a link on their site to Macromedia.com where a free download of Flash is available. The folks at KidsHealthGalaxy neglected to do so. And that’s the biggest problem. While it is just a quick surf over to Macromedia.com, to get the latest Flash download, it is one more step to ask a surfer to do. For a veteran site surfer, that may be enough annoyance to lose them. For a novice site surfer, who may not know where to go to get the necessary viewing software, it is enough to lose them.

Also because of the nature of Flash, KidsHealthGalaxy is a site best surfed on a broadband connection. That immediately limits who can access the site. And that’s too bad. The information on the site is really good and should be made widely available. An optional, non-Flash area built in Java or HTML would greatly facilitate the majority of users who still surf the Internet on dial-up. For many sophisticates, that sounds like an absurd option to offer, but frankly broadband’s recent 50% U.S. penetration notwithstanding, there is a large population of kids whose parents can’t yet afford high-speed Internet connections.

Another bummer is that English is the only language option on KidsHealthGalaxy.com. Again, given the universal nature of the Internet, perhaps the creators of KidsHealthGalaxy will get hip and offer more languages. Some of the information here is hospital-specific, but most of it is general enough, and more importantly, good enough to share.

In summary, KidsHealthGalaxy is worth forwarding as it has great content, is visually appealing, easy to navigate and highly interactive, if you have the latest Flash and read English.

Finally, KidsHealthGalaxy rates a .com Dish! “E” for everybody.