The purported purpose of the site is evident from the title: “Busy Moms Online”: provide helpful information for busy moms, online!
About 40% of the front page is devoted to “non-content” material: ads. My major question about this site: was it actually an attempt to provide useful information for “busy moms” or was it trying to sell me something?
The design is pleasant and not too busy. There is an annoying bead board background that appears while the page is loading, but it recedes to the border of the page eventually. The colors are muted shades of green and gray and the text sits on an off-white background that makes it easy to read.
I am not in the target audience for this site, and I neither scrapbook nor do arts and crafts projects. I do cook, I occasionally babysit, and went to daycare, so I looked in sections where I might be able to judge the usefulness of the information. I’m sorry to say that there was nothing particularly useful or insightful in the places I checked. There were recipes, none inspired, and the list of questions for daycare providers was simply common sense. In fact, everything on this site is simply common sense or a repackaging of information easily available elsewhere.
The technical quality of writing was quite good. This is especially impressive given that the author is a non-native speaker of English. Credit her for an excellent job of copy-editing. There was nothing particularly humorous or meaningful in this site, however. The author claims to care about what she’s doing, but it really doesn’t show through in the writing. The style is bland and distant.
There are no bonus features on the site. There is a short “about me” section that neatly explains the purpose of the site. There is a band of google ads across the top and a list of “sponsors” in the right hand column. I didn’t click through on the ads or the sponsors. The contents of the site are listed by category, which is handy. All the substantive links are operable.
I cannot recommend visiting the site. I found it boring and cliché. It aimed for the lowest common denominator of the stereotypical “busy mom.” It is packed with ads that distract from the actual content, and that content is not very useful. I give it a 2, mostly because the spelling and grammar is correct and the design is pretty. Busy Moms Online