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Question of the day

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Illinois

Rate the following websites using standard school grades (A, B, C, D & F). Explain for each…

1) Democratic Party of Illinois

2) Illinois Republican Party

3) Illinois Green Party

4) House Democrats (state site)

5) House Republicans (state site)

6) House Republicans (campaign site)

7) Senate Republicans (state site)

Senate Republicans (campaign site)

The Senate Democrats don’t have a functioning website yet.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 10:13 am

Comments

IL GOP old site is actually better than the new one. And you should just do an auto redirect, you dorks!!!

OLD: Made it very easy to see where to donate, volunteer.

New: hides it in drop down java script. Hope everyone has a fast machine and new browser.

Both: No links to where the party stands (could this be telling??)

News is just press releases.

The blog is very good, BUT the “ad” for it sucks, big time.

so:

New: C-
Blog: B+

Comment by Pat Collins Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 10:31 am
“The Senate Democrats don’t have a functioning website yet.”

I can almost hear Emil Jones trying to explain this: “We don’t need to have a website.What is this, Nazi Germany?”

Comment by dc Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 10:43 am
Rich, I have been waiting for this question since they relaunched their sites. Unfortunately, I could not find a way to slip this in off-topic, either.

Illinois Republican Party: F minus.
B3 Blago Website: F minus.

This is coming from a Republican. They should get a clue.

They don’t need a website, they need a political philosophy.

“Rod’s bad.” Tell us something we don’t know. Like, what have you done about it and what are you going to do about it?

Comment by Elephant's Memory Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 10:51 am
“The Senate Democrats don’t have a functioning website yet.”

If it generated income, they would have a website.

Comment by Guy Fawkes Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 10:52 am
I’ll give the state Democratic Party website a D. It’s just not very open, but you’ll at least know who’s who. OF course that could be augmented if other organizations around the state had websites and info on how to volunteer.

Comment by Levois Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 11:10 am
1) Democratic Party of Illinois - C

2) Illinois Republican Party - B

3) Illinois Green Party - A

4) House Democrats (state site) - C

5) House Republicans (state site) - B

6) House Republicans (campaign site) - D

7) Senate Republicans (state site) - C

8) Senate Republicans (campaign site) - B

The Greens understand how a web site should look and feel. It is clean, professional and does a terrific job presenting clearly their party.

On the other hand, the GOP House Campaign site looks like it was designed by a staff of people utterly unfamiliar with the Internet. This site looks like it was meant to be printed and put up at Illinois rest stops, next to the Best Western coupons. It looks like a brochure, created by graphic artists without web experience and just plain amateur. It would have been impressive maybe ten years ago.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 11:11 am
Vanilla Man: Maybe it WAS meant to be printed and put up at Illinois rest stops, next to the Best Wastern coupons.

Comment by Elephant's Memory Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 11:40 am
1) Democratic Party of Illinois - C- : Press release section “under construction.” Very informational, organized by category, not by importance or hierarchy. Contribution button has no link to online donation, just an address/phone number. Calendar is empty. Only gets passing grade because it has basic information.

2) Illinois Republican Party - B-: Multimedia should be embedded flash-based video, not WMV links. News could be more current. Photo gallery is nice. Contribution link goes to online donation form. Overall, looks OK, but could use more content. Link should forward to “new” site as another mentioned.

3) Illinois Green Party - B-: Clean interface, but navigation cues could be better. Also, lacking in visuals while heavy on text. Donation form is good. Format resembles more of a forum than a so-called traditional format, which has pluses and minuses. Some candidate info is really buried.

4) House Democrats (state site) - C-: Mostly information based organized by category, but some slightly hierarchical elements. Content is almost non-existent. No multimedia or news elements.

5) House Republicans (state site)- B+: Blog doesn’t exist and the podcast isn’t a regular feature. News section could be updated more often. Front page is decent, however, and it makes it easy to use the feeds. Information displayed with hierarchy, which is good. Could use multimedia features.

6) House Republicans (campaign site)- B-: Almost too visual and color is used badly (for attention grabbing, not to organize). The “press room” sidebar should be the content in the center, pushing the center content to the side. No multimedia and little “news.”

7) Senate Republicans (state site) - A-: Good organizational elements with frequently updated content. Lacking multimedia elements. Uses a good CMS system (joomla). Features RSS feeds. Good search function placement and the links up top offer quick access to timely elements.

8) Senate Republicans (campaign site) - A: Simple structure, with easy navigation. Implements linking to social networks, but could use those sites (especially YouTube) more. Donation feature is fantastic in organization and simplicity (though the donate button could be larger and given more prominence). Adding of forums are good, but they’re pretty much dead in terms of users. Site has the right ideas, just needs to have more activity.

Bonus: IL Republican Party “We Are Illinois” - A: Links to social networking sites, which are fairly active. Blogging on Blago Blog suffers from branding confusion (site URL and blog title aren’t the same) but the design is clean. Lacking search feature. News page could be displayed better. Calendar could be displayed better.

While some site designs are nice, having a “good looking” site isn’t enough. They should be used as social networking tools to build user involvement on a constant basis, which I don’t think most of these sites really do. While some are linking to Web 2.0 sites, they’re not taking advantage of Web 2.0 themselves, which is a shame, given that the primaries start in a few months and it’s probably not going to be enough time to build a decent online community.

Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 11:42 am
i really enjoy the ilgop site…i think it is pretty good. i thought the old one was pretty good, but the new one is real good

Comment by the pug is on the prowl Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 11:47 am
I like the Senate Dems the best, because it best describes their party/chamber.

I guess it takes a while to get it working when Emil is designing it with a typewriter. badumpbump

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 12:10 pm
Wonderful analysis, Mr. Martinez. My only opinion is I think they all could stand to be updated more often with more recent information.

Comment by Dr. Candle Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 1:15 pm
Illinois Dems–D

Nice header but no content, and the lists under the header look cheap. Not very well done.

Illinois GOP–C

Header is too large and with the graphic underneath, leaves no room for content the reader can see at first glance. The main page is almost totally negative about the Dems instead of positive about the GOP. They should be tooting their own horns. However, the content is better than the Dems, and despite the large graphics and header, it looks better, too.

Illinois Green Paty–B

Nice clean page with content and good links to valauble information. It is true to its nature, hiwever, and is very conservative. It needs some splash somewhere to get an A.

House Dems State–C-

The main page is unbalanced–too much white space on the bottom right. The “Related Links” should be a button at the top of the page. And, truthfully, Madigan’s picture makes him look like Frankenstein.

House GOP State–C-

The main page is too long, too much scrolling. The page is cluttered, and it is difficult to find “stuff.” It looks worse than the House Dems, but it has a lot more content, otherwise, it would receive a “D.”

House GOP Campaign–C- or D

Again, the header is way to big as is the links section. The reader sees NO content when the browser opens. Way too cluttered; where does a reader start?

Senate GOP State–B

Decent header (even with Frank’s smiling face and some content viewable from the first frame. probably takes too much scrolling on the main page. Links need to be visible when the browser opens–they are hidden dow and to the right side. However, not a horrible design.

Senate GOP Campaign–B+

I like the way it looks, though the page is wider than my screen. I like the fact that some news content is on the front page, but they don’t try to put all the news on the main page and make you scroll through it all. the “My Issues” link at the top really gives no information at all; it’s a discussion board. Strange. I like that they have a YouTube section. Tres hip. They must have the same deisgner for all the GOP sites because they all have a header that is too big.

Comment by Fan of the Game Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 1:25 pm
FYI - Dept. of Public Health - Director Eric Whitaker is stepping down, Dr. Damon Arnold will be stepping up as his replacement.

Comment by Crimefighter Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 2:03 pm
Mr. Collins and Mr. Martinez have done an excellent analysis. The new GOP site is a pig to load. Apparently, the GOP wants to leave the rural areas behind (and that includes areas within 5 miles of the Capitol - way to go AT&T service), since that is where about 25% of the internet population still suffers with connection speeds below 56KB.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 2:14 pm
Anon 2:14 - Good point about load times. I’d forgotten about that myself.

This reminds me about another point: mobile versions of their pages. Given how many people own smartphones (BlackBerry, Treo, iPhone, etc), this is almost a must-have feature for sites that want to distribute information.

Dr. Candle: I completely agree that these sites need to be updated consistently to drive users to their sites and keep them coming back. This element alone is probably the most annoying aspect of campaign or political Web sites run by either candidates or parties. Having a site isn’t enough, it’s about maintaining the experience for the user.

Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 2:42 pm
I must agree with Elephant Memory that based on results State Dem Party and House Dems have the best sites.
Let’s cross out fingers and hope the other spend lots of time and money to make their sites more important to themselves. Meanwhile Dems will just continue electing more office holders.

Comment by Reddbyrd Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 3:43 pm
I want to point out that the Illinois Green Party’s site is designed to be accessible for people with disabilities. Look at the bottom and you will see that the site is both Section 508 and W3C AA compliant. This does affect the appearance.

I also want to highlight that, unlike the Democratic Party of Illinois and Illinois Republican Party, the Illinois Green Party is using Plone, an open source content management system that ensures, for example, that each page can be emailed and has a printable version.

Comment by Squideshi Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 3:56 pm
Rich, Man you are soooooo bogus for not including our web site http://illinois.usmjparty.com/ Dont sell out to the man…..

Comment by Jeff Spicoli Monday, Sep 17, 07 @ 6:17 pm
All of the sites make it very difficult to find an email address for members. Some don’t have this information at all. The House Democrats’ site includes email, but it is at the very faintly printed “legislators” link at the top of the page. Finding email for your elected state rep should not be this hard.

Comment by diane Tuesday, Sep 18, 07 @ 8:09 am