WhatCauses.net appears quite simple, but in a somewhat elegant manner. There isn't much eye candy to go around, just a simple title and plain blue background color on menu and block bars. There are a few nice elements that elongate the elegance of it a bit; the thick gray vertical borders around the site and border style of sidebar and teaser blocks with a thick light gray border on the left and slight barely visible dotted border on the bottom (at least on teaser blocks).

There are a few things that detract from said elegance somewhat as well; the two side by side blocks (categories and advertising) within the sidebar and a misalignment of teaser blocks when one of the side by side teaser blocks have its title occupy two lines, which happens once on the homepage.

Of course, the most obvious and glaring problem is that all teaser images on the homepage which were apparently intended to display do not display, and in fact show a missing image icon giving the site an incomplete feel and seriously detracting from the appearance of professionalism. They show up on some of the further pages of content teasers significantly improving the look and feel of the site where they do.

Fixing this and the other more minor issues mentioned above would be significant improvements, but to make it more impressive it could also use a nicer header as at least the site title displayed in a more attractive style and perhaps also featuring a logo design.

Design Rating: 6/10

Focus:

"What Causes", as the title of the site, may sound a bit odd at first because the word "causes" may be read as a noun when it actually makes more sense as a verb. The titles of articles on the site fix that possible impression instantly as they're simply questions asking "what causes X". Apparently, the site's focus is on providing information about causes of certain "things" which may be diseases or conditions, emotions etc. Pretty much all of it is related to human health and conditions.

An about page may be useful to describe the purpose of the site more explicitly. It takes browsing through all the content to see it actually covers only health related causes whereas one may assume it will describe causes of such things as natural phenomena.

Focus Rating: 9/10

Content:

We're offered one hundred articles describing causes of various diseases and health related conditions in form of not too long articles not all of which follow the same outline. Some have no sections and others, although most of them, start by an introduction and defining of the condition and then a section on causes outlining and describing various causes in subsections.

One thing I observed in the sample of articles I reviewed is that the introductory paragraphs tend to be a little long so I'd just, at least as a matter of reminder, warn towards making paragraphs shorter so they're easier to follow. All in all however, articles appear to be to the point and rich with relevant and potentially useful information and the site definitely delivers as far as providing information about causes.

The right sidebar also offers a featured video block currently featuring an illustraive video on the causes of a heart attack.

Content Rating: 9/10