PEI political party websites are a mess

The websites of PEI’s major political parties are without exception a mess. Empathize for a moment, pretend you are someone short on time and/or with poor eyesight, and try to complete these common tasks as quickly as possible:

  • Who is my constituent and what is her qualifications for the job?
  • What is the party doing to meet my needs (the platform)?
  • Are there any upcoming events in my area?

Some websites will be more successful than others. Some quick annoyances I’ve found:

The PCparty doesn’t bother introducing their candidates, they don’t have any events, nor do they seem to have a platform.

Someone told the Liberal party that putting their platform as a pdf in a “3D Flipbook” was a good idea. It’s not. It’s completely inaccessible and not scannable. Also, how they have chosen to disseminate their platform puts too much of a cognitive load on us the voters, we’re supposed to piece together all these tiny media releases into one coherent whole? That’s their job.

The Greenparty appears to have a number of different landing pages depending on which link in Google I click. One leads to a huge picture of nature (a pdf I believe), another to a face of the party leader, and yet another which emphasizes the two successful members of the party. Luckily one landing page gives you access to an html version of their party platform, which allows you to use the accessibility features of your computer, but it suffers from a common problem of organizing data for their own understanding, versus the understanding of their prospective constituents. Their PDF version looks great but isn’t scannable and thus unusable.

I didn’t bother looking at the NDP party because they don’t seem to be even trying.

Serving your electorate involves transparency and convenient access to information for all. How the party’s attempt to disseminate information is a key indicator for me of their values as an organization. Designing for outliers (inclusive design) is important for public organizations. All party’s seem to be struggling in this regard.

This was by no means a comprehensive review of any of the websites. I had 10 minutes to spare and was dismayed at what I experienced. Having said that, if I had trouble, then it’s fairly reasonable to expect others will too.