Sexual assault prevention and response website analysis

Abstract

The President of the United States issued a call to action in 2010 for more emphasis on eradicating sexual assault on college campuses and in the U.S. military. As college and military leaders seek improvements in prevention, reporting, and response they must enhance training and raise awareness through their Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) programs. This thesis analyzed 16 SAPR program websites from selected universities, non-profit organizations and the Department of Defense (DOD) to identify best practices and provide recommendations for restructuring the Navy (N17) SAPR website. Specifically, a website analytic metric was developed and used to evaluate each of the 16 selected websites on six different dimensions: access, navigation, content, visual design, interaction, and credibility. For each dimension, best practices for SAPR program websites were identified across the university, non-profit, and DOD organizations. Additionally, common themes were organized for comparison to the Navy (N17) SAPR website. Results show that although N17’s attempts at providing resources in combating sexual assault are commendable, when compared to best practice websites the U.S.Navy's (N17) SAPR website lacked many characteristics that would make it most effective. Particularly, the Navy (N17) website lacks several user-centric best practices and the tools that do exist on the website are limited when compared to the promising practice websites. Specific recommendations are provided to improve the Navy (N17) SAPR website.