If design defines the candidate . . .

then we cannot afford 8 years (if he lives that long) of McCain!

As a graphic designer and UI/UX engineer, I really try to dig into what a web site is trying to tell me besides the surface message. For some time now I have been a big fan of Barack Obama’s site as well the Hillary’s too. These designs are extremely pleasing and well executed. The user experience is well put together and the message is easy to extract. In Barack’s site specifically, the attention to detail, use of colors, composed images, designed icons, etc . . . is pretty hot, these guys did an awesome job.

One element that really ties it together is the use of tools that most users can clearly identify with. For example, both Hillary Barack are using Flicker for her photo gallery. Great stuff! What does John use? Well he has this really complex FLASH 3D gallery wall and there are instructions on how to use it. John, if you have to show instructions for people to view your gallery, you have to really ask yourself, what are you really doing here? Who’s the elitist here?

When it comes to design, this little tid-bit blew me away. Check out the background image used in Barack’s site. This is great stuff. Any design team that pays that much attention to detail and puts that much effort in a part of the site that almost no one sees is #1 in my book. 

Then there is the HTML/CSS itself. Both sites display not only powerful creativity, but the code itself is practically flawless. The attention to detail and the organization of the CSS is almost perfect. As the title of this blog states, if the design of their sites defines the candidate, both Barack and Hillary show that they respect the new world of the internet and put their best foot forward. 

Now on to John McCain ‘my friends’. His site couldn’t be more outdated if they had tried. I know that McCain has been trying to run for President since 2000, is he still using the same site? Cause, it sure as hell looks like it. Hey John, 1995 called and they want their design back. Let me break this down:

1. How old is this design? Really guys, where did you pull this template from? Those free clip art CDs that came with Fireworks must be getting a little dusty these days? There is nothing modern of forward thinking about this design what so ever. Lame, yesterday, more of the same.
2. This is some of the worst CSS written that I have ever seen!  Note to designers, have you ever heard of defining a container ID and using cascading styles to modify UI? I mean, come on!
3. Inline CSS? Are you kidding me? Yes, there is a ton of inline CSS written into the page HTML. Have you ever heard of the separation of UI and content? Well, guess most Republicans have never heard of the separation of Church and State, so this concept may be to much to ask.
4. The body HTML is a nightmare. There are tables, yes ‘my friends’ TABLES! OMG!
5. The search is in the footer? The footer? Who looks in the footer for a search? Why even have it?

Ok, so what is my point? Well, I guess you could say that my motivation for this post was the complete terror I experienced when I decided to look into the guts of the McCain site. If he feels that this is ‘good enough’ then he doesn’t get it. This clearly shows how out of touch McCain really is and electing him as president will only bring more of the same.

You may think that my conclusion is drastic, but think about it. If McCain can’t even pull together a quality team to produce a modern web site for his campaign, and trust me - he has the money to do so, how can you expect him to really do the right thing when it counts. Face it people, this is the 21st century and if you are not plugged in, you are dead.