Obama versus McCain – Web Design Wars
Now that Barack Obama has won the Democratic vote for President, it seems like a good time to review both Presidential candidate's websites. BarackObama.com and JohnMcCain.com First off, here are the details of these sites: BarackObama.com
- Server Type: PWS/1.2.29 (Personal Web Server)
- Width: 960 pixels
- Code: CSS and PHP
- Color Scheme: White, Shades of Blues, Grey
- Design: Light feel, Use of Gradients, Modern, Crisp, Comfortable
- Cross-Browser Compatible: Yes
- Estimated US Visitors Per Month: 1,568,981
- Valid HTML?: Failed validation, 8 Errors (XHTML 1.0 Transitional)
- Server Type: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
- Width: 999 pixels
- Code: Mostly Tables and ASP / ASP.net
- Color Scheme: White, Shades of Blues, Grey
- Design: Light feel, Use of Gradients, Modern, Crisp, Comfortable
- Cross-Browser Compatible: Two notable IE6 problems on homepage
- Estimated US Visitors Per Month: 350,340
- Valid HTML?: Failed validation, 85 Errors (HTML 4.01 Transitional)
BarackObama.com is immediately a striking yet calming website, designed with organization and cleanliness in mind. The main website navigation is clearly defined and the overall usability of the website is excellent. The format of each page begins with a nice page heading graphic, well-designed and interesting. Each page is organized clearly, and a perfect amount of white space and padding is added to each section.
Features on BarackObama.com are:
- User Accounts / MySpace style : Yes (My.BarackObama.com)
- Newsletter Sign Up: Yes
- Website Blog: Yes
- TV Channel and Videos: Yes
- Events Search Engine: Yes
- Local Grassroots Group Area Search Engine: Yes
- State Specific Pages: Yes
- People Group Pages: Yes
- Issues Pages: Yes
- Downloadable Logos, Wallpapers, Print Materials, Buddy Icons etc. Yes
- Social Networking Links: Yes
- Register To Vote Link: Yes (off site)
JohnMcCain.com's design lacks real organization and a friendly user interface look and feel. The overall design looks contrived and forced together, without any flow or consistency evident throughout. The color scheme....well...there doesn't appear to be a standard organized color scheme at all with different colors, and tones all over the website; Prominent blues, orange/yellow, red, bright green, turquoise blue and dull blue/grey. Font sizes throughout the website differ, as well spacing and padding. An example of this is if you venture between the Campaign Calendar page and the Blog page. The difference in padding and margin at the top left is a terrible lack of real professionalism in user interface standards, especially for such an important website like this.
Features on JohnMcCain.com are
- User Accounts / MySpace style : Yes (McCainSpace)
- Newsletter Sign Up: Yes
- Website Blog: Yes
- TV Channel and Videos: Yes
- Events Search Engine: No (only events calendar)
- Local Grassroots Group Area Search Engine: No
- State Specific Pages: Yes
- People Group Pages:No
- Issues Pages: Yes
- Downloadable Logos, Wallpapers, Print Materials, Buddy Icons etc.No
- Social Networking Links:No
- Register To Vote Link: Yes (on site)
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