Since everyone needs a place to start, and Hillary’s site seems to be considered one of the better sites, let’s begin the evaluation with her.
I originally planned on doing two or three sites per post, but as you will read, not an easy thing to do.
HillaryClinton.com – (design by Mayfield Strategy Group, backend by solutionset)
At first blush, Hillary’s site kind of looks like a simple re-templating of her Senate site – maintaining the some of the lighter blues of her past campaign site – and adding the requisite navy blues and red necessary for a “presidential” site. Upon the launch, one of the major colors that you saw was the color pink – look at the videos during the initial announcement launch – and watch as the candidate changes the color of her outfits from a purely pink then adding the blues of the jacket, to the total blue suit outfit – all while still being in front of the homestead looking room. Funny thing – when I first saw the launch, especially with the new catch phrase, “Let the Conversation Begin”, I knew Peter Daou had to navigate the Communications Team to coordinate that one. But to get back to the questions at hand:
Design/Technology Smarts
Now, to be fair, the head of Mayfield Strategies, Josh Ross, is one of my favorite designers. When we first “met”, after he had responded to an email I had sent out to a Stanford alumni mailing list, I immediately liked what I saw. Little did I know at the time that Josh was one of the premiere designers out there. Josh, with his long-time business partner, Alex Kaplinsky, did amazing things for the Kerry Campaign. And, after the campaign, their work has spread to a number of major campaigns in the 2006 including Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, Governor John Corzine of New Jersey to name a few. Their work is often clean and to the point, and they use the learning from their corporate clients to improve the sites and features found within the campaign sites. So, I am somewhat biased because it is in my own personal design style, but I am going to measure on certain usability principles and the original metrics we discussed in my earlier post.
- First Impression – She’s soft and strong, she could be our President
As Tom mentions in his Flash post, the brand is strong – “Hillary” – no mention of “Clinton” there, but it’s already an automatic reflex to connect the two words. The logo is diminutive with the same “soft but strong” font-type (white letters with a hint of a blue outline). IQ pts: +4 - Call To Action
Not sure who was the first to do this on campaigns, but Mayfield often recommends having a splash page that almost requires you to have to signup to get to the homepage. But as of my viewing today, it looks like that page is no longer available (clear your cookies and go which leads me to believe that Peter and/or Mayfield has determined the return on investment (visitors to signatures) has either been dropping off or dissuading people from going the next step (they decide to leave instead of doing the next step).
The first things I see as the call-to-action is the leftmost visual – the main stage as we used to call it. It leads people to the main topic that the campaign is promoting, and the negative font placement (white on a darker color) draws your eye. Secondly, you are drawn to the lower right by the “Contribute” button. Thirdly, well – here is where it gets “wonky”, as my students put it. You could claim it is the “Making History” box, the “Top Videos” or the “Team Hillary Action Center”. This is where it dies out for me – since I am not enticed to be “active”, rather, I am enticed to use the website for two purposes – watch the videos and contribute. IQ pts: +3
- Signup
Signup is easy – especially with the signup bar in the upper right-hand corner, and they grab the requisite two pieces of information (name, zipcode). The disappointing thing is the next step, which leads you to the “Team Hillary Page” with the light green “Thanks for signing up for email. Take the next step and join Team Hillary.”. This page is the disaster that every campaign goes through – how do you get more information about a person and their interests without inundating them with too many requests? Mayfield is a firm believer in the “above the fold” rule – all of the work must be above the fold of the screen, to maximize the performance. Consider that every major contact page (e.g. signup, Share Your Thoughts, videos, contribute) all exist primarily above the fold – and the action button is (usually) easy to see. For me, this is key – to maximize the performance. IQ pts: +4
- Donate
Again, contributing is easy – all of the lessons learned from eCommerce and the Kerry Campaign are in force – the backend does not enjoy the same look-and-feel of the main site – but we sacrifice for the safety of the server. Same one-page, above the fold concept. Errors are handled appropriately (with small red font where the “errors” live), tracking of where the donations come from and even the contribution receipt has a “Report a Problem” link which can connect to the [email protected] email account. Minor issue is the font size, but the assumption more than likely is that people with bad eyesight are not going to use this interface as often. IQ pts: +4
- Activism
With the Action Center provided by solutionset, Hillary has one of the nicest action centers – with the lovely hues, simple interface and above the screen fold principles. Each of the functions are clearly available on the right, and clicking through, the particular features are clear and simple. They falter when you look at the so-called Featured Actions are essentially performance trackers – “Didrespond to this issue? If so, track that”. Note, that there is very little to do once you click through the Featured Actions aside from identify yourself (as I explained almost six months ago in another post). And, if you want to get involved in a party for Hillary, the party locator is excellent – as long as someone has published the party within her system. IQ pts: +3 Recommendation: consider publishing the events via an iCal feed for google and/or other services like zvents or eventful for interested parties outside of the HillaryClinton.com domain
