John McCain: The website uses a lot of black and blue. Red and yellow are used as secondary colours. Like Clinton's website, the American flag is faded into the header's background, but it does not look very appealing in grey. There is also a primary photograph of McCain and his wife superimposed onto a bright American flag with shouting text overlaid on top of it. The military-like star and yellow stripes in the logo are repeated in the section headers. The website contains the general candidate information, a blog, supporters, photographs, event listing, video, and a contribution form.
Overall, there are a few design problems with this website.
· The typography is not consistent throughout the website.
· The photographs are very grainy; a grainy photograph of a section of a bus is incorporated into the design.
· The elements in the layout are not all consistent, such as the headers, which are different sizes and colours.
· The information is presented in a confusing manner; it looks as though it were thrown on the screen without much thought of hierarchy or best use for space.
Overall, the website seems to act more as a collection of information about the candidate instead of trying to sell the candidate. There is not a Spanish translation of the website, and the website is focused more on victories and the campaign over an attempt to get users involved in the campaign and to sell the candidate. Futhermore, the website appeals to an older audience looking for information. In an attempt to appeal to a younger audience, the website hosts 'McCainSpace', which sounds as though it may be similar to MySpace. There are no apparent links to the networking websites like MySpace or Facebook, which limit the exposure of the candidate. (Upon further browsing, I did discover links to networking websites, but these are not immediately apparent and only appear in a subpage.) Although the website has a link to its community, it does not sell it. In fact, it is not entirely clear what a 'McCainSpace' is and what it has to offer. Overall, this website is not presented very well and it does not try to sell the candidate or encourage people to keep using the website. 5/10
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