Design, Politics, Usability
Jul 11, 2007
Todd Zeigler
View Comments

Obama Homepage: Before and After

The Barack Obama campaign has been rolling out new features on its website at an impressive clip. A campaign timeline. Headquarters pages for each of the early primary states. A mobile program. Good stuff and they are clearly doing a wonderful job online.

But in the process of launching this stuff, they’ve turned their clean, nicely designed homepage into a canvas on which to cram as many banner ads as possible. On launch, they had six distinct content areas on their homepage. Today they have eleven elements stuffed into the same space.

Below are the before and after pics. I cast my vote for before.

Before:

OBAMA

After:

obama_new

Disclosure.

  • http://eburgobama08.org Jim Lyons

    It might be a little over the top, but Obama supporters don’t mind it. The Senator’s campaign has been about reaching as many people as possible through Web 2.0 communities.

    The number of Web 2.0 communities that the Senator has a presence on has also increased to seven from the original five links at the bottom of the page.

    Content wise, as far as I can tell, Obama’s site is the only major web site that also lets anonymous (ie – Obama bashers) posters write on the various blogs. No registration, just blast away.

    Most of the Obama bashers are ignored, but some Obama supporters can’t resist giving as good as they get.

    The busy look hasn’t hurt the fund raising, now has it?

    B-)

    Jim Lyons
    http://eburgobama08.org

  • http://eburgobama08.org Jim Lyons

    It might be a little over the top, but Obama supporters don’t mind it. The Senator’s campaign has been about reaching as many people as possible through Web 2.0 communities.

    The number of Web 2.0 communities that the Senator has a presence on has also increased to seven from the original five links at the bottom of the page.

    Content wise, as far as I can tell, Obama’s site is the only major web site that also lets anonymous (ie – Obama bashers) posters write on the various blogs. No registration, just blast away.

    Most of the Obama bashers are ignored, but some Obama supporters can’t resist giving as good as they get.

    The busy look hasn’t hurt the fund raising, now has it?

    B-)

    Jim Lyons
    http://eburgobama08.org

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    You are right about the fundraising. I think the current homepage is great for repeat visitors who are already oriented. I just wonder if new visitors will have a clear sense of what to do.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    You are right about the fundraising. I think the current homepage is great for repeat visitors who are already oriented. I just wonder if new visitors will have a clear sense of what to do.

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