That’s What I Get For Fact Checking
So I helped liveblog tonight’s Mayoral Forum with RVANews and it was a good time. Except that I had the screwup of the evening.
In answer to a question on health care, Dwight Jones asserted that he was the only candidate that mentioned the issue on his website. Being on a computer I figured I’d check the claim for accuracy. The man was right, not a mention on any other candidate’s website. Good for him.
While digging up this tidbit I figured, hell, might as well briefly rate the candidates’ websites based on strength of design since that’s my bag. So I start checking out their sites, Jones first, Pantele second, WIlliams, then last but not least Robert Grey.
When you visit Mr. Grey’s website he has a video that starts playing right away. And I didn’t have my volume turned down.
The room heard Mr. Grey greet me for visiting his website.
You’re welcome for that small bit of free advertising, Mr. Grey.
That said, the candidate websites by awesomeness of design of the index page in my modest opinion:
http://www.billpanteleformayor.com/ – While I don’t care for the brick background, everything’s above the fold and neatly laid out. You have a video (which doesn’t start right away, thank you, Mr. Pantele) and the big ol’ no-nonsense buttons. Crisp, does what an index page should, good stuff. Below the fold I could do without the empty blue on the right (sky blue on brick?) but above the fold, solid.
http://www.robertgreyformayor.com/ – I guess I can forgive the video starting right away (though that ranks up there with midi files playing the moment I hit a page, if I want to see/hear something I’ll hit play), but Grey’s site is clean. A little too blog layout for my liking and the “contribute” and “volunteer” buttons are too tucked away to really be effective. Too much space is given to the banner and there’s a lot of white space where you really don’t need it. Aside from that, the index page is brief and fairly tight, you want more you can find it and click on it but you get a straight up delivery off the bat. He doesn’t overdo it with info and that’s good.
http://dwightjonesformayor.com/ – I like the “join”, “stay informed” and “contribute” buttons and how they sit. But there’s too much blank around everything and the space with his face and the city scape is a prime location for a video or blurb about how he is. Links at the way top don’t fit the design, the links in the banner are too small and easily overlooked.
http://lawrencewilliamsformayor.com/ – A straight forward HTML website that looks designed either by template or WYSIWYG editor and it hasn’t been updated since July 4th. While it may give all the info, there’s nothing to catch you and my first thought is that it’s a placeholder site or under construction.
That’s the quick and dirty. Check them out for yourself. And have the volume down for Grey’s site.
Williams’ site is a “canned” site from GoDaddy.com. And I hate to say it but it looks the part. The one thing that hit me right off the bat was the lack of a title for his site. The Home Page is very amateur as is the “Website Tonight” logo at the bottom. Tacky. I didn’t go any further.
When I started reading your post, I opened each site in a tab and reviewed it first, then read your comments. And I found my observations were closely following yours.
I was blasted out of my seat by Grey’s video. I hate that. It is a nice clean re-work of a basic Joomla theme and whomever designed it took care of one of my pet peeves (see http://scottsmb.com/2008/10/pet-peeves/ ). I am fond of the header. I like the displaced image of Mr. Grey though it does create a little more headspace than I prefer.
Mr. Pantele’s site is … hard to look at for me. I don’t like the bricks and the color scheme that he has with them, and the right column does need to be filled. An overall poor use of Drupal. Blog like. Did you say that? I can’t really find much I like about this site
Mr. Jones’ page has a “smack your face” appeal to it when you first see it. I would differ with you on the assertion concerning the cityscape. I like the header a lot. It’s clean and airy. Like you I find the integration of the three buttons on the right side very well placed and nicely done. Each one different enough to be noticed but not so much they are out of place with each other. But that’s where the good stuff stops. It’s a blog. Of course I am, lately anyway, a fan of magazine style layouts and if one was going to have a blog, I would choose that. I am not sure what platform he is using… it is Windows based using ASP.NET infrastructure but it loads fast and clean. Lastly, the Obama websticker is not transparent. You can clearly see the demarkation lines of the image. Either fill the background with the like color, frame it with a border, or make it transparent. That just looks bad.
Dang I felt talky tonight…
Good thoughts, Scott.
I think Williams’s site is from his campaign being a one man operation, so he did what he could and that’s that. Which isn’t terrible.
I think we’re still at a point in local campaigns and the internet that as long as your site is informative it doesn’t have to be the best looking site but that is rapidly changing and over the next couple years, as national campaign sites change their looks, I think you’ll see the current looks trickle down to the local level.
Though why more sites locally or even statewide don’t strive to look more like the slick, high end operations of national campaigns is beyond me. It’s not all that expensive to do, just takes some effort. Like the magazine style layouts you site, there are plenty of them out there, some even for free, and can really give a ho-hum site a great quick makeover.
I think of them all, Pantele and Jones almost get it with Pantele leading the way just because he gets more above the fold. The brick and colors are a turnoff, but the meat is there and works off the bat. Jones, eh, just want more steak above the fold. I’m big on above the fold, you gotta be able to hook drive-by viewers.