How to lose West Virginia come November

Well, this is just typical of how seemingly "small things" can make or break close elections.

Case in point... this morning I visited the website for the Democratic Party of West Virginia at http://www.wvdemocrats.com/

Now, I had visited the site on previous occasions but since it was a bare-bones site with little useful info in way of news and such, I had little reason to revisit lately. Hearing that GWB was going to make a stump speech in Huntington this Friday, though, I decided to see if the site had posted any news or info.

First thing I noticed was a new splash page. I thought, "Great! Finally someone is getting their act together!" What a laugh. Once you enter the poorly-designed site there is nothing but a few links WHICH DON'T EVEN WORK with my iMac -- and that includes the contact link which I hope to use to complain about their piss-poor website!

Compare the Dem Party's site with that of the WV Republican Party, at: http://www.wvgop.org/

C'mon, we've GOT to do better than this! Little wonder the GOP machine has gotten such a strong foothold in WV. They're not only well-organized and well-funded, but they know how to use the internet to its full advantage.

This may seem like a minor point to some, but to me its symptomatic of why WV is losing Dem votes to the GOP machine.

:shrug:

And what's your internet browser?

They look amazingly similar to me.

You have me confused. What looks amazingly similar?

They look amazingly similar.

I got a site that looks like every singe other state party site I've ever seen. No breaking news -- state parties don't generally have that -- but plenty of working links, platform, and press releases from as recent as March 20.

The GOP site looked no different (except their nav menu was at the top).

I can't imagine winning or losing a state based on subtle differences on the Web site.

I'm running OSX (Panther) and Safari on a iBook G4, with a cable line, but I can't see why this wouldn't function on dial-up, with most reasonably recent browsers, which is usually considered the threshold of acceptable. Anything too fancy takes forever to download on dial-up, and won't run on anything but the newest browsers which aren't compatible with the machines still in schools, libraries and many homes. (If you're truly not getting functionality on a recent browser, by all means, you've got a valid complaint. But if you're expecting all the bells and whistles, keep in mind that those cost money -- money that could be spent on electing Democrats to office -- and make the site less functional for many people.

Whoever designed this website either didn't make it compatible for Mac platforms or older browsers. Other than the left hand navigation column -- of which the links don't work -- I get nothing but blank pages.

There are a LOT of folks around here who can't afford the latest PC equipment or upgrades. Apparently no one bothered to see if the site would work on older browsers, but the folks who designed the GOP site surely did.

Going to these sites is a vital way for folks here to get information on their parties, county organizations, voter registration, events, etc. To many of us out there this Dem site is totally useless.

I get very peevish about web sites that allow design to overwhelm function, and that are more concerned about surface visual impact than they are about communicating the content of the site.

Just for the heck of it, I ran the WV Democrats home page through the W3C validator and it bombed with 89 validation errors, whereas the home page for the GOP site had 51 errors. So they were both poorly coded by web designers that have no interest in meeting web standards.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wvdemocrats.com%2Findex2.php

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wvgop.org%2F

Building a standards-compliant web site is the best approach to insuring maximum access of the public. It doesn't mean you have to avoid all the bells and whistles that make a site visually attractive, it just means you carefully choose the technology that will enhance your site for the most current browsers without compromising basic functionality for the older ones.

Support Web Standards Now!
http://www.webstandards.org/about/

--Boomer

The problem with the WV site is not that it needs MORE features, but rather that they've used javascripted navigation that doesn't work across all platforms.

The site looks fine on my PC, but Handpuppet tried to view the site on an iMac with OS9.0 and the page doesn't load completely. The GOP site, on the other hand, works equally well on both computer platforms.

How many users you're willing to lose due to technical incompatibilities is always a judgment call for any website designer, but for a political site that is trying to reach as many people as possible I would have strongly recommended a more conservative use of javascript. (And for the record, I'm a website professional myself.)

--Boomer

I did Whitacre D_WI's Web site, and we kept it simple ($, my ineptness). There was not a soul who couldn't read it or navigate it.

I've got OSX, and I don't usually have functionality problems -- it's been awhile since I upgraded, too, so I keep forgetting these things.

They haven't gotten the message that there is now a nominee.

http://www.wvdemocrats.com/demconnection.php

... and here I went to the site this morning to see if there was any news regarding the Thief-In-Chief's campaign stop in Huntington this Friday. Silly me.

I guess any news about upcoming Kerry apearances is too much to ask, as well.