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 Conservative.ca Website Review
By Greg Farries
June 23, 2004
It would seem that the Conservatives have placed their best foot
forward when it comes to the campaign website. My initial impression
was that the site was a drastic improvement from the amateurish
look and feel of the pre-election post-merger, conservative.ca
site. The party appears to have made a significant investment
in both time and money, and the site appears accomplishes many
valuable campaign objectives.
The website contains the standard fare of a modern online campaign,
such as a donation and support area, issues, press release and
media centre and candidate and party profiles. The site even
employs a small, and unfortunately under-utilized, weblog — which,
incidentally, became all the rage on the campaign websites of
the Democratic primaries to the south. There is a nice balance
between the party’s primary colours, blue and red, and
the site is visually appealing. The site also does a good job
of introducing the visitor to the new look of the Conservative
party, the new leader of the party and the core message of the
campaign — “Demand Better.”
There are several minor problems with the site, but I will focus
on the major shortcomings. The first of these is the gratuitous
use of images. Understanding that a campaign website needs some
degree of glitter, this website is unfortunately burdened by
it. The main page alone has over 104 separate images files totaling
more than 313,268 bytes of data (or 2.39 megabits). That would
mean it would take over a minute and a half to load on a 56k
dialup modem. You read that correct: a minute and a half! Even
with a broadband connection, it will take over 40 seconds for
the site to load completely. Only the most dedicated of supporters
are going to wait that long for this site to load and anyone
else will likely abandon the site all together.
The second major problem is the basic layout of the site. It almost
goes without saying that, on the Internet, content is king; in
order for a site to be successful, it must contain a certain
degree of well-written content to anchor the site. However, on
the conservative.ca site, content appears to secondary to everything
else. The core content block on any page, the block of text that
holds information that is relevant to the particular section
the user is located, is small and insignificant when compared
to other parts of the page. For example (and without getting
too technical), if one were to break out a ruler and measure
the amount of screen real-estate allocated to the core content
block in relation to the rest of the screen real-estate allocated
to navigation, sidebars etc., you would find that less than a
third of the valuable screen real-estate is allocated to the
core content. The rest of the real-estate is taken up with candidate
and volunteer profiles, donation, campaign coverage and refer
a friend buttons, photos of Stephan Harper, etc.. And, for the
most part, these screen-hogging, image-intensive side bars are
static throughout the site – wherever you surf, the candidate
profile follows you, regardless of whether you are perusing the
issues section or watching a campaign ad. Assuming individuals
are visiting the site to collect information about the party,
its candidates and its policies, they are unfortunately met with
a website that downplays and minimizes core content. For a newly
formed party with some uncertainty and confusion over policy
positions, this does not instill confidence in those potential
voters that look to the website for clarification or affirmation.
If in fact content is king, we can assume that the Internet would
an excellent research tool for interested individuals to seek
out information that is not normally available through traditional
media sources. Knowing this, you would assume that every attempt
would be made to provide surfers/voters with additional information
on topics that concern or interest them. However, conservative.ca
only provides positions on a handful of different issues and
addresses these issues in only a couple of sentences. Even as
the party rolled out its policy platform through a series of
press conferences, it failed to post any of that important information
or any additional information on their site. Only mid-way through
the campaign did the party bother to post any firm policy positions;
even then, they did not integrate this information directly into
the site structure. Only after clicking on a button titled Party
Platform — nestled on the lower right of the website – is
the user presented with the party’s official platform.
This late addition appears to the user as an afterthought, as
the navigation and site layout changes, albeit only slightly,
when the user selects the button. It actually appears that the
user is taken off-site to another different website for the policy
platforms. One has to wonder why the party chose not to provide
more detailed issue statements or at least to attempt to link
those issue statements to their policy platform.
This review, while certainly not exhaustive, attempts to address
the three main problem areas belonging to conservative.ca. Those
main problems, the overuse of irrelevant images, a layout that
stifles content and the disconnection between the party’s
platform and the website, serve as a barrier to those individuals
inquisitive enough to seek out and use the website. It also inhibits
those supporters who want to reinforce and reaffirm their support
for the party through the website. Although the Conservative
Party of Canada has clearly tried to make their web site a priority,
these flaws prevent it from being all that it could be.
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