McFilter

ElectionsUK.org - A Missed Opportunity

I am pondering my lack of interest in politics; although I have an interest in individual policies, and opinions on the general form of government (for state provided healthcare, good education, without restricting entrepreneurship or commerce unduly), I'm largely apathetic when it comes to elections. My overall feeling is that the parties are much of a muchness, and it's difficult to compare and contrast them. I wasn't particularly bothered when I missed the last general election through having to visit Seattle on business.

Of late, I have resolved to exert more energy into such matters, not so that I become politically active; just so that I feel suitably informed to decide for whom to vote.

When I came across ElectionsUK.org I imagined I had found the answer to my electoral dilemmas - here is a site whose aim is "To initiate, design and develop Impartial Electoral Education, using the Internet..."

I was directed to the site from the North West Regional Assembly website, because ElectionsUK have been chosen to cover the debate about the referendum.

However, it was rather difficult to discover that information. ElectionsUK.org seems to be two websites separated by a common domain name. The page at www.electionsuk.org/ gives information about the aim of the website, and the background of the project, but you have to click on a banner proclaiming "NEWS FLASH... CLICK HERE" to get to a site with a different look and feel and a completely different menu structure (http://www.electionsuk.org/elect2003/01/newsindex.htm)
There's just no need to have a flash animation for a basic link to a news page! It isn't clear that it's part of the site, it looks like a banner advert and the text isn't obviously connected with an election site. Luckily for me I could see the text - there isn't any alternative to the flash plugin, so anyone without it, or anyone who couldn't read the text in the image would be restricted to one half of the website!

It also had a predilection for launching new windows (admittedly one of my pet hates with websites), so by the time I'd found the press release about the North West referendum I had half-a-dozen copies of Firebird open on various parts of the site.

So, overall, I was disappointed with my visit to ElectionsUK, annoyingly because it promised so much but then fell so short. To be fair, it seems to have grown from an experiment in the Lincolnshire area, and had I been in search of information on those elections I'd probably have had a better experience. I think with some usability testing and a revamp of the site to reflect its new national direction, this could become a valuable resource for the UK.