This is really smart.  Yelp is essentially a social network, so people are more likely to join and be active if their friends are already using the service.  Well done Yelp.

I gave the new www.gop.com a mixed review when the RNC first re-launched the site in October 2009.  A few days ago the RNC launched a new version of their flagship site, so I figured I’d take a fresh look at it.  Overall, I think it is a nice improvement, although naturally I find a few things to pick apart.  Following is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the redesign.

The Good

(1) The use of space on the homepage for top stories/headlines is much more logical and cleaner than the previous site.  I particularly like that they removed the giant Facebook fan box that took up way, way too much real estate for a questionable payoff in the old design.

(2) Under the prior navigation structure, there were an overwhelming number of drop down options, which I suspect lead visitors to be confused as to where to go.  The options now are much clearer, and I like the use of primary and secondary navigation elements.

(3) In the previous iteration, users had to click a button in order to sign up for email alerts.  I wrote at the time:

“The main call for users to sign up for email updates is hidden behind a click.  While I appreciate this as a user who is already on their list, as someone who builds sites for a living I would never want a user to have to click more than once to give me their email.  I’m a firmly believer in making the sign up process as simple as possible.”

This has been fixed and you can now sign up without a click.

(4) I like the little take action option that appears on the left side of the page, mostly because it is different.  I do vaguely worry that it is a little too cute and that some users will simply not see it.

(5) I like the idea of having a list of Trending headlines on the homepage.  However, I wonder if these items are handpicked or chosen based on an algorithm given the content featured (links to YouTube videos, external sites, etc.). 

(6) The Volunteer Match tool looks really interesting.  Curious as to whether it works.

The Bad

(1) The Issues section needlessly uses Flash – I presume in a misguided effort to mimic iTunes Coverflow.  It is really clunky, and I think a more traditional presentation would have been much more effective and helped with SEO.  They over though that section. 

(2) The Blog section is also a little too cute.  The RNC has nine different blogs, and in an effort to highlight all of them they developed a layout that is a bit overwhelming.  I think they would be better served aggregating the latest entries and presenting them in a format that actually looks like a blog (basically one blog stream).  A presentation like GigaOm would have been much more effective.  As it is now everything is too compartmentalized.

(3) The RNC’s social network, Our GOP, continues to strike me as not very user friendly and not up the standards of the rest of the site design wise.  It also doesn’t look to have gotten great traction, with around 10,800 users according to this page. 

(4) It has been almost a year since the launch of the original site, and the design didn’t change much until today.  I think the RNC should be iterating and improving constantly instead of holding back from these big release once a year.

The Ugly

(1) The new site allows you to change the background color from red to anything you want using a color picker.  This allowed me to change the background to a sort of fushia/purple and add a pattern.  The result of my artistic expression is below.

This strikes me as silly.  It is the sort of thing that seemed cool back in 2002.   Plus it isn’t implemented very well.  If you change your color, the original color will flash briefly every time you navigate to a new page.

More importantly, if I’m the RNC I’d want to control my brand and present the site as the designers intended.  Team Obama certainly wouldn’t have let me change www.barackobama.com to fuschia.

Naturally, I immediately clicked on the Punish Derrick link, launching a Flash movie in which Derrick gets a cup full of coffee thrown in his face.  At the end of the video, they ask me to resubscribe (see below).

This is really clever.  First, they make the unsubscribe process easy and entertaining.  Second and more importantly, they smartly try to reengage with me in an effort to get me to stay.  I was tempted to stay on the list to reward their cleverness, even though I have no use for Chicago deals.  Well done Groupon.  That’s how it is done.

View full screen and click on the Show Info option to view my notes on each design.

Most designers take inspiration from great designs like the Obama site, using it as a jumping off point for their own work.  Others simply steal aspects of the design whole, either out of laziness and lack of inspiration, or in a concerted effort to associate their candidate with the Obama brand.  Following are examples of elements of the Obama design that, to varying degrees, have been appropriated by other candidates.  Note the examples mentioned range from some pretty blatant copy jobs to more subtle use of similar colors, fonts and drawing styles.   Thanks to my colleague Kodi Seaton for the accompanying graphics.

(1) Complete Rip Off

Current Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu website is the most blatant Obama rip off I’ve seen.  His site steals the Obama design lock, stock and barrel.

(2) Splash Page

The Obama campaign (and now Organizing for America) used splash pages to great effect as a way of recruiting volunteers.  Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and New York Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio have implemented splash pages on their websites that are remarkably similar in design and layout to the Obama splash page.

(3) Site Header

The Obama site has a unique header, with a logo, quote and email sign up appearing beneath a call to sign up for MyBarackObama.  Colorado Senate candidate Michael Bennet liked it so much he replicated the header pretty much exactly on his website.

(4) Red Donate Button

Obama was certainly not the first candidate to bring attention to his Donate section by making the link to the page red to set it off from the other navigation elements.  But the campaign executed it better than anyone else, and candidates like Blanche Lincoln and Kay Hagan have mimicked the Obama button design.

(5) Site Background

One of the more distinctive elements of the Obama site is its blue background (if you look at the background image directly you’ll get a sense of the detail involved).  Candidates such as John Oxendine and Brian Sandoval have implemented similar blue backgrounds with subtle detail on their sites.

(6) Top Story Style

Another distinct feature of the Obama site is the style of the rotating top story area on the homepage.  The designers behind the site take great care to use consistent drawing styles and fonts for every single item they feature in that space.  Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann mimics this style quite closely on his site.

(7) Sidebar Element Styles

Like the Top Story area, consistent fonts and drawings styles are used for the sidebar graphics on the Obama site.   Current candidates Bradley Byrne, Brian Dubie, Dan Seals, Mark Newmann and Bill Binnie have mimicked the Obama sidebar style to varying degrees on their sites.

(7) Use of Inspirational Stripes

The Obama logo features three red stripes, and the campaign uses the stripes repeatedly on the site to convey inspiration and progress.  A variety of candidates use similar striping on their sites, including Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahan on her splash page.

(8) Home Button

One of the subtle touches of the Obama design is the use of a distinctive home icon to indicate to users how they can get back to the site homepage.  While Obama certainly didn’t invent the home icon, he certainly popularized it.  We’re seeing similar icons pop up on the sites of other candidates, including North Carolina Senator Richard Burr.

In the last few months, I’ve noticed some campaigns creatively using photography and video to really brand the candidate, instead of taking on the look and feel of a normal campaign website.  Below are some examples of this trend (click on images to go to full site).  While I think some of these sites are better done than others, I applaud all of them for trying something different.

Nathan Deal (R-GA)

Karen Diebel (R-FL)

Sean Duffy (R-WI)

Martha Roby

Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Kevin Yoder (R-KS)

Incidentally, all of the examples of this trend I’ve seen are from Republican candidates. 

The Bivings Group, a Washington, DC-based web development and Internet services firm, which provides web-based products and services to Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and advocacy groups, is seeking talented and smart production/design applicants to join our team. We specialize in website development, content management systems, media monitoring and analysis, online marketing, grassroots and campaign management, and online training. Please visit http://bivings.com/what-we-do for details regarding what we do. The ideal candidate will possess exceptional design and production skills, an understanding of user-centered design principles, and the ability to turn business and user requirements into elegant user interfaces. The ideal candidate should be able to quickly hand-code clean HTML and CSS from Photoshop Comps and Wireframes.

Requirements:

• Significant Drupal & Wordpress experience.
• Strong HTML, XHTML, DHTML, CSS, XML programming skills.
• Proficient in Photoshop and Javascript. Working knowledge of Flash.
• Basic understanding of interaction design and user-centered design methods & practices.
• Professional experience collaborating with design and development teams on large-scale projects.
• Ability to prioritize, manage and track multiple tasks across multiple projects, under tight deadlines.

Bonus Skill Sets:

• Actionscripting
• AJAX

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• Location: Washington DC
• Compensation: Salary commensurate with skills and experience

To apply please email your cover letter and resume to jobscl@bivings.com.

We’ve had great experiences working with Ning, and are proud to be among a handful of firms included in the first Ning Certified Partner Directory, which was announced yesterday.  Ning has some great new features in the works for the next few months, so stay tuned. 

I like Apple, but I am not a fan boy that immediately buys everything they put out.  I waited a year before switching to the iPhone, and have only recently started using a Mac as my primary personal computer.  As someone who is relatively cautious in my purchases of new gadgets, I’ve viewed the iPad with a healthy degree of skepticism since it was announced earlier in the year.  I have a laptop, a Kindle and an iPhone, so the iPad has always seemed a bit frivolous to me.  This is not something I need, and up until now it hasn’t excited me enough where I would take the plunge simply because I want it.

But now I see the reviews in advance of the release tomorrow, and I’m starting to think I really, really want one, and that this devise really could be a game changer.  Below are some snippets from the more respected reviewers, to show you why I’m excited.

Walt Mossberg of Wall Steet Journal

My verdict is that, while it has compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most data communication, content consumption and even limited content creation, a lot of the time. But it all depends on how you use your computer.

If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a consumer of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music—this could be for you. If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.

Stephen Fry of USA Today

It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist’s rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker’s Guide that humankind has yet devised.

David Pogue of New York Times

The iPad is so fast and light, the multitouch screen so bright and responsive, the software so easy to navigate, that it really does qualify as a new category of gadget. Some have suggested that it might make a good goof-proof computer for technophobes, the aged and the young; they’re absolutely right.

And the techies are right about another thing: the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it — books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience — and a deeply satisfying one.

With all online ads, there is sort of a battle between publishers and site visitors.  As site visitors get better and better at tuning out advertisements, publishers get more and more creative (and desperate) in their efforts to grab readers attention.  An interstitial ad campaign ESPN.com ran yesterday is a good example of the push/pull between visitors and publishers. 

ESPN is a site I’ve visited on just about a daily basis for as long as I can remember, so I’m pretty familiar with how its design has evolved over the years.  Yesterday, when I visited to the site I was taken to a page that looked like the homepage of the site from 5 years ago.  Indeed, the top story on the page referenced a 2004 MVP race.  Below is a screen grab.

I immediately recognized this as an old ESPN.com homepage design, and later confirmed this by poking around the Wayback machine (see here and here).  I was honestly confused, wondering if ESPN was having some sort of technical problem.  Then I noticed the Lexus ad at the top of the page, and a split second later the ad expanded to show a full page ad promoting Lexus as the first company to launch a luxury hybrid.  See below.

At this point I opt out of the ad and move on to the main ESPN homepage. 

Honestly though, the whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth.  I understand that ESPN.com needs to pay its bills, and that as a reader of their site I’m obligated to view my fair share of ads.  That’s fine.  But I think ESPN is hurting its brand by allowing advertisers to essentially trick visitors into thinking they are viewing editorial content when they aren’t.