Election 2006 - Party Web Sites

Here we stand on the eve of the next Canadian election kickoff, as the opposition parties are just now sitting down to vote no-confidence in the government and bring it down.

Without any partisan bias (in this post only, probably), I took a look at the current party web sites (we may see some new sites spring on to the scene once the government is officially dissolved tomorrow) to see how they stack up on a superficial visual basis. In addition, I was curious to see if any of the parties is taking the time to ensure their party or campaign web sites are accessible to those who have mobility or visual impairments.

Here are my quick observations, in alphabetical order, followed by summary conclusions and a ranking:

Bloc

Bloc – 800×600 graphics mode

The Bloc site is a little busy but at least fits neatly into 800×600 screens, unlike the Conservative web site. Some menus may present a challenge for visually impaired (not just blind but colour blind) users.

Since I’m a committed Federalist whose Canada includes Quebec, and both my sons are learning French, I won’t start commenting on what I feel about the Bloc as a party, except to say that I’d be happy if they were reduced to just a couple of seats in an election one day.

Back to analysis… in text mode the Bloc site suffers from sins we’ll see repeated in most other party sites.

Bloc – text mode

Why care about text mode? Political parties in every election I’ve checked since the web came about continue to ignore disabled Internet users as real consumers of information. Blind users often employ screen readers operate off the html text on a page; its not rocket science to make even a visually complex site much more accessible to this community, and in the process of thinking about these issues, site designers are likely to correct other accessibility problems.

In an election where the marketing campaign is very short and its critical that you reach as many as possible, often for the least cost possible, spending some money on good, accessible, site design will pay off.

The Conservative Party of Canada

CPC web site – text mode

Accessing the CPC web site through a text-mode browser was an exercise in total frustration. Not only is there no actual content on the first page visible to the user, but a large percentage of the links are not followable in most text-mode browsers. Conservative Party web designers – you’ve just cut out most of the blind community from following your message!

CPC web site – 1024×768 graphics mode

At first blush the party’s web site appears attractive enough, to users of higher resolution monitors. If however, like a sizable proportion of web-users, you run your display at 800*600 resolution, you’ll completely miss the menu along the right hand side of the page (under stay connected). Whether seeing more navigation (note 4 obvious menus spread all over the page) is better is left to the user to decide.

CPC web site – use of Flash dominates the home page

Users of some browsers and operating systems that don’t have, by choice or other limitation, Macromedia Flash installed, will be unable to view much of the content on the first page. In my view, the use of Flash is really quite unacceptable for election sites.

There’s just so much not to like about the CPC site, we could pick it apart for some time, so instead, lets move on.

Liberal Party of Canada

Liberal site – text mode

The Liberal site, in text mode, completely fails any quick sniff test of accessibility for two main reasons:

I doubt the Liberals, or the Conservatives, intended to shut out persons with visual or handicaps from reading their sites. Surely there are Canadian citizens with handicaps that want to join the Liberal or Conservative parties, donate funds, volunteer, or just vote for them. Unfortunately, many persons with handicaps will be able to access the Liberal or Conservative web sites. Hopefully the parties will get a clue and fix these issues, promptly.

Liberal – 800×600 graphics mode

The site is relatively crisp and employs a drop down menu to good effect, however Liberal site designers commit a big faux pas, employing a silly Flash animation:

Liberal – this flash area will take up space with the ugly message “Click to load plugin” – no thanks!

Other than the Flash faux pas, the Liberal site implementation leads all the others in terms of imparting information. More pages give you real content as opposed to menu upon menu or big graphic blobs.

New Democratic Party of Canada

NDP web site – 800×600 resolution

The NDP web site employs no Flash nor any javascript-dependent links – this makes it immediately more accessible than any of the other sites reviewed.

NDP web site – text mode

In text mode, the NDP web site has the same failings as all the others – no ability to quickly skip the navigation links and most directly to the primary content of the page – but, by virtue of a less complicated page with less linked content, at least getting to the content can be done relatively quickly. Half marks awarded to the NDP – the only party to receive any marks for text-mode browsing.

Conclusion

I’ve ranked the sites in order of accessibility, based on my own subjective yet somewhat analytical approach. From best to worst, in text mode:

From best to worst, using a graphical browser (most of the population):

From best to worst, using a graphical browser but giving a little more weight to layout and a little less weight to accessibility:

If web pages were votes, Conservatives would turn in a last place finish. Clearly they can do better; lets hope they (and all the parties) spend a little money and clean up their web act and let Canadians with disabilities into the picture too.