State vaccine websites have issues with slow load times and slow browsing

On paper, using a website to schedule your vaccine appointment seems like an easy way to access much-needed COVID-19 vaccinations. But a new investigation of The markup shows that state-run vaccine websites are slow to load on mobile devices, making what can be an already daunting registration experience for those less comfortable online.

The markup conducted its performance tests using Google’s open-source Lighthouse tool, in this case relying on the tool’s ability to measure the time it takes for a site to load and be up and running . For this test, The markup focused on the performance of the mobile version of the sites on the Chrome browser and tested from three separate locations (New York, Texas, and California). The Nevada state vaccination site was the slowest to load, taking 15.7 seconds to fully charge compared to the fastest (Puerto Rico) at 1.4 seconds and the average (Colorado) at 5 , 9 seconds.

Picture: The markup

The causes of these slowdowns vary, but in the case of the Nevada site, The markup suggests that an abundance of integrated interactive content could contribute to slowness:

Nevada’s immunization page includes several embedded YouTube videos and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts that offer public health information, with medical professionals answering common questions in English and Spanish. Our tests show that the Nevada page has the lowest average performance score of any site we reviewed.

All of this additional information is great, but I think the confusion arises for people with less literacy on the web as well, as these sites don’t work like scheduling a traditional doctor’s appointment over the phone. Being presented with a bunch of links from the original site to the websites of other vaccine vendors was intimidating for my grandparents – who often worry about getting ‘lost’ online – and I imagine it would be. many others.

The situation is reminiscent of other times government organizations have been tasked with creating essential online infrastructure, such as the deployment of healthcare.gov. The federal site’s issues have since been resolved and state health departments are working on a much smaller scale, but some of the issues are similar. It’s not that these departments are unable to build a website, it’s that time and resources are exhausted, and many of them have never really been tasked with such a huge project. “They never needed the infrastructure they have now,” says Ohio State University health services professor Tory Hogan. The markup.

Third-party solutions have sprung up in response to these shortcomings, from startups focused on connecting people with remaining vaccine doses like Dr. B, to independent vaccine hunters making appointments for strangers. But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, at least not until the vaccine research website President Biden promised on May 1 launches. Hope the website works better.