I think the Barack Obama website is amazing – one of the best on the web. The ability of the site to “brand” him as a politician is astoundingly detailed and beautiful. However, I think the recently launched Fight the Smears site could be much better. I think there are some information design issues with the the page that makes it difficult for the reader to get the message. I don’t think the problem is severe enough for the user to be confused as to confuse the fiction from the truth, but I think the page doesn’t work as a quick read, to the point where it took me a while to figure out exactly how to read the page.
The basic problem I see is that the visual connection between the “smear” and the truth is broken on several levels.
– The “modules” that each smear/truth combo lives in isn’t visually set off from the page background or the other points on the page, making it hard to tell where one stops and other begins. This issue is compounded by the fact that each of the points are of different length, making it harder to visually parse what is what.
– While the “smear” and “truth” logos are cool, they are so visually different and the relationship between them on the page for each point is different (due to different copy lengths) they don’t “read” as a common point. In other words, I don’t get that they are both talking about the same thing, as they look so different from each other and are spread out inconsistently. The headlines for the Smear and the Truth are also different size, different color, and different font, breaking the visual connection even further.
– There is a 1 pixel gray line between each smear/truth that is not much lighter than the division between each point, making the connection between the smear and truth further separated.
– It would also be great to explore the use of interaction to present the details of “the truth” to keep the user on this page, rather than sending them to another page for the facts. Either expanding the column, having an overlay with more information, or another interactive element would make the page experience much smoother. This information is so compelling, and I’d hate for potential voters to come to this page and not get the message due to an information design that could be improved.
A friend of mine helped get my comments in the hands of the team who designed the site, and they thanked me for the feedback. They wrote back that it was put up rather quickly, and that they will work to improve the site as time goes on. Thank you Obama web team!
