Two Mayoral Candidate Websites: A Comparison

Graphic Design - look and feel can be very subjective but overall you want your website design to be in line with your overall brand identity.Design will quickly give users a overall feeling when visiting your site and can shape any impressions or message you want your visitor to hear or experience.

Grade: B
Professional photos of the candidate is the best feature of this design.Good font size use throughout.Colour contrast on certain pages of the site make reading difficult.

Grade: A-
Overall this is an attractive site with professional photography and attractive graphic design.

Font size in general is a bit below standard size which can make reading difficult for many visitors.

Search Engine Optimization - Visitors that seek out these candidates in most cases will utilize the name of the candidate as their search term.At a minimum these sites should be optimized to list near the top if not at the very top of searches. Many factors affect search engine rankings including how many articles on the Internet contain the candidates name already.

Grade: B
When googling this candidates name this first two listing are from Wikipedia.The mayoral candidacy site appears about half way down the list. Sharing a name with a Law & Order character adds to the confusion.

Grade: B-
Spelling this candidates name correctly can sometimes be challenging - which makes SEO even harder.Her worships candidacy site appears on the 2nd page of google where as the first page is full of many other relevant pages such as Wikipedia and her City of London bio page -not necessarily a bad thing.

Interactivity - how interactive a site can be is really dependent on the audience and interaction the candidates desire with their visitors. Some common tactics for candidates may include "ask a question form", "sign up for a newsletter", or a "discussion forum".Today, social networks such as Twitter and Facebook offer an 24/7 interactive opportunity for candidates to engage theirconstituents.

Grade: B-
Many options presented on the site but all lead to email addresses vs. contact forms for users to take immediate action. Joe offers an opportunity for visitors to comment on his blog, but the interface was a bit to tricky for me to figure out quickly.Facebook and Twitter links are also presented.

Grade: B+
Many options to take action on this site: fill in a volunteer form, order a lawn sign, follow Anne Marie on Facebook and Twitter.

Adding the ability to donate online would be a nice feature to assist with fundraising.

Stickiness - defined as the effectiveness of a website in retainingvisitors, stickiness is usually increased when sites contain content of value that is engaging to the visitors. Interactivity will often aid in increasing stickiness as users stick around longer engaging with your site.

Grade: B
Joe is doing a good job of letting us know where he is on a day-to-day basis so that I can connect with him.He has also started a blog that I hope to see updated frequently as we move through the campaign.There is good potential on this site to encourage visitors to revisit and continue to learn more about Joe - only time will tell if the campaign team will keep the site current.

Grade: B-
While the core pages of the site offer basic information on the candidate, I hope to find more information as the campaign progresses.There are no apparent signs of updates to come based on the site layout - maybe this is it.

Accessibility - not all visitors to these campaign sites will interact with the site using their mouse.Some visitors may use screen readers to assist with visual impairments while others may not be able to utilize a mouse to navigate and be solely reliant on their keyboard.Sites need to designed to be accessible to all visitors. These days making sites that are accessible to mobile devices may also be a consideration.

Check out: http://wave.webaim.org/
for an handy evaluation tool.

Grade: C
The website contains many features such as Flash content and navigation elements that are inaccessible to assistive devices.

Alternative versions of content must be created to make this site accessible to all visitors.

Grade: C
The website contains many features such as Flash content and navigation elements that are inaccessible to assistive devices.

Alternative versions of content must be created to make this site accessible to all visitors.

THE WINNER?

A draw - both candidates have a solid starting website - lean on content and messaging.

Neither is actively working on creating content of value that will encourage visitors to stick around and learn about them.

While both candidates have signed up with social networks Facebook and Twitter, neither has yet forged ahead to explore how to further engage constituents in this medium.

I am excited to see how the digital medium plays a role in this upcoming election and I hope both candidates work hard to get their message out - both traditionally and digitally.