Brandy Reppy

Working as an interactive architect, I get to do a lot of different studies and research activities (that likely fall neatly into the "things-I-think-are-cool-but-most-people-think-are-nerdy" category). One task I personally really enjoy is doing content analysis. This typically entails taking a snapshot of all of the content on a website, and organizing it in a flat file (usually Excel) and reviewing it. The purpose is to provide an aerial view of the site, and, in the end, to more easily identify content gaps and abundancies, as well as a plethora of other pieces of information that, again, falls into the aforementioned category.

To be sure, evaluating all of the content on a site and figuring out it's successes and failures is not an easy task. I'm constantly finding new ways to be wrong - and new ways to approach the whole event. In researching for a project I recently worked on, I came across an excellent article by Fred Leise entitled Content Analysis Heuristics. One particularly pertinent statement I found in this article is regarding audience relevance:

Content organization allows different audience segments to easily find relevant content.

While this sentence seems fairly straightforward, I've found that time and time again this is a really challenging way to think about content. As content administrators, we are far more likely to group information based on what makes sense to us, or who is in charge of the data, or what department that particular information falls into, as opposed to using the mental models of our constituents.

It seems almost too easy to forget that most site visitors don't have much insight into the way an organization groups information or what department is in charge of what.

To combat this, I've started using a really simple technique. Whenever I find myself traveling down this road, though, I stop and ask myself "what would a user do?" It's just a little litmus test, but it keeps me on track, and it stops me from making decisions based on assumptions.

Try it for yourself - I'd be willing to bet that it changes the way that you make choices on your website. At worst, you'll waste a few seconds; At best, your users will walk away with a much better experience.

I'm not sure about everyone, but Tuesday, November 4th was a great day for me. My softball team won our last game of the season, my brother had a birthday, the weather in Austin was beautiful, oh and the nation elected a new President that I really believe in.

It's no secret that I think there are lots of lessons that organizations can learn from Barack Obama's use of the internet. He's essentially become a media darling in how he's capitalized on social media outlets and grassroots campaigning. Between the twitter feeds and the text message updates, I've never felt more connected to a candidate. But here's the one piece that I think has been my personal favorite. The following is an email that Obama supporters received the night of the election:

Dear Brandy,

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,
Barack

This went out to all of the supporters as a very simple form-letter "thank you".  So why is the impact so great? Because it's rare.

So often, organizations and companies will focus six weeks of time on getting the form layout just right, and one hour developing the content for the autoresponder after the transaction is complete. Every detail of the design is scrutinized, but there is never follow up with purchasers, advocates or donors to let them know the success of the campaign or measure they have supported.

Obviously the time and resources available to someone like Barack Obama often far exceed those available to the average organization, so running a presence on every social network on the planet isn't always practical. But paying just a little bit more attention to small details like this is something that every organization is capable of, and is something that has the potential to make a big difference to supporters.

With less than a month left until the election, the race is certainly heating up. Sometimes it seems like there's a clear winner, and other times we just can't be sure. I'm talking, of course, about the Presidential Score Card series we've been presenting here on Connections cafe, of course.

As it stands, the score is Obama 2/McCain 1. I thought we could take some time to look at how the candidates tackle social media.

John McCain

John McCain has two major social media components integrated into his campaign and website: McCainSpace and the McCain: Get Involved facebook application.

McCainSpace is a social network built on the KickApps platform. It allows members of the community to blog, post images, and to share videos. Members need to create accounts specifically for the application, but once they do, they have the ability to participate in the community. This is an interesting concept in that it really is a way for McCain supporters to interact with each other.

The Facebook application is clearly a more mainstream way for users of the popular social network to publicize their involvement with the McCain/Palin ticket. This application enables users to take various actions like organizing meetings, planning fundraisers and planning phone banks. As with most Facebook applications, users are able to very easily invite friends to the join them and install the application.

Barack Obama

Now let's take a look at how the Barack Obama campaign intergrates with social media. First, directly on the site there is the ability to create a MyBO account (I know, you can snicker at the name; I sure did.). This is along the same lines as McCain's McCainSpace, enabling constituents to blog, to make friends, to host events, and to donate. Most of the functionality parallels that of McCainSpace, though I did find MyBO to be a lot more usable, and it showed much more localized content based on the zip code that I entered when I registered.

The next component is where the parallels between the two sites end. On the Obama site, there is a section entitled "Obama Everywhere". This section features links to nearly all of the major players in the social networking space and then some: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, Eventful, LinkedIn, BlackPlanet, Faithbase, Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsianAve, and DNC PartyBuilder.

In addition to all of these different methods, the Obama campaign also released Obama '08: The Official iPhone Application on October 2nd. This app allows for a quick reference to where Obama stands on issues, allows users to find local events, reference media coverage, and to quickly access news and updates. But, one of the most talked about functions of the app is the "Call Friends" function, which references all of the contacts stored in the phone, then divides them up by state. The app then lists the contacts, divided by state, listing the battleground states first. Users then have the ability to mark their contacts within the app as either called or not called, and the user can mark how that friend has decided to vote. (I know there were some issues with the reporting on this application early on - you can read about those here.)

Conclusion

If we learned anything from Howard Dean in the 2004 campaign season, it's that candidates need to be mindful of the masses who are on the internet. I think it's obvious that Obama has embraced the idea of social networks as a way to empower constituents to be not just a bystander in the election, but a part of the change. This enables actual supporters to reach out to people who may not be touched through the conventional methods of information dissemination. While the McCain campaign has taken strides in this direction, it is still behind the times when it comes to embracing the ability to harness "people power" online.

And with that Obama win, the score is now Obama 3/ McCain 1.

We'll see you at the polls!

In doing research for an upcoming webinar I'll be hosting with fellow blogger Misty McLaughlin, I've been thinking a lot about general interactions where I have to give solicitors information about myself. I realized that I've changed in the way that I perceive these interactions and in the way that I feel about giving up personal information.

One recent interaction I had comes into mind as a great example of what I mean. I went to a department store to make a return, and before they could complete the transaction, they needed to know my phone number. When I asked why, they said that they might need to get a hold of me (duh). No one could say why they would need to call me, or who it would be, or even if it would be in regards to the return. I was simply to give them my number because they asked, because one day they might want to get a hold of me. And, when I politely declined, they said they couldn't complete the transaction without it.

This got me thinking. It seems we are at a weird cross-roads of information sharing and gathering. On one hand, every social network wants you to tell the world what you are doing and where you are. Geolocation is built into our phone systems, offering restaurant recommendations at the shake of a phone.

But, on the other hand, I expect a high level of transparency about the information I'm sharing with an organization or business. If you want me to sign up for your email, why do you need my zip code? If you want me to register for your site, why do you need to know my gender? If I don't know, I'm more likely now than ever before to skip the sign up altogether.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, an anomaly. But, I've had enough spam-filled inboxes and unsolicited junk mail to know that my information is valuable to someone. Just because one organization is honest doesn't mean that they all are, right?

Remember to be cognizant on your own site to and be explicit about why you are collecting whatever information you need. People like me are out there, and we aren't just giving up information because you're asking any more. So be aware and be prepared - and if you're going to make a return, don't forget your brand new cell phone number - you'll probably need it.

In light of Misty McLaughlin's post Presidential Hopefuls Scorecard, and with AIR Austin creeping up on the horizon, I thought I would take a few minutes to briefly review the accessibility of the sites of Barack Obama and John McCain. (This will be based as much as it can be unbiasedly on accessibility - wish me luck!)

Barack Obama

Pros

• Graceful resizing for anyone who needs larger fonts.
• Commendable job separating content from design. Turn off the style sheets on this site and you end up with a decent job of pure content, and *gasp* skip links to jump over the navigation.
• Tabbing is fairly intuitive (for all of our mouse-free users out there) and seems to allow you to navigate through the site almost as if you were using a mouse.
• Closed captioned multimedia options - which means everyone has access to the content in the speeches.

Cons

• The contrast of the links to the background in some places is no where near distinct enough and could cause problems for people with visual impairments or old monitors.
• There are quite a few images with no alt tags (not even blank ones), and that can mean big trouble if you're a screen reader user.
• A couple of bad moves when it comes to the use of headers, using them for style instead of substance

John McCain

Pros

• Graceful resizing for anyone who needs larger fonts.
• Again, tabbing is fairly intuitive making it at least mostly able to be navigated by keyboard-only users.

Cons

• No closed captioning or alternative accessible features for multimedia. (The only option is a PDF brief of the speech.)
• Mediocre separation of content and design - in most parts tables are used to control positioning, which means trouble for a lot of people.
• Some links open in new windows with no indication - which completely disables the back button and hindering backwards navigation to the rest of the site.
• Absolutely no headers used on the site as far as I can tell - which means no indication of information heirarchy and challenging navigation for screenreader users

The Results

I wanted to give you an even list of pros and cons on both sites, but the drama wasn't there, gang. Kudos to Barack Obama's team for taking them time to include accessibility (and web) best practices into the website. McCain clearly has a lot to learn about the web as a medium and about the millions of people in America and around the world who have disabilities that impair the way that they use the access information on the internet.

This is a big pass to Barack Obama with flying colors, making the score 1-0.

PS - Side note - Convio is proud to announce that we will have TWO teams competing in the AIR Austin competition in October. Good luck teams - we'll be sure to post the results as they come in! Learn more about AIR Austin by checking out the Knowbility website.