Here at GottaQuirk, we tend to highlight bandwidth-heavy, Flash-intensive or cutting-edge HTML5 sites for the Site of Note feature. It’s understandable; everyone loves shiny online interactivity and these sites can provide great creative inspiration. But for today’s post, we’ve chosen a site for its simple, clean usability and consideration of the user’s needs.
DA Home Page
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has just relaunched www.da.org.za, its portal for DA-related news, information and membership. They’ve maintained a clean, traditional blog-style layout which will make navigation simple for users. Multimedia has been included throughout the site to enrich the experience. Polls and newsletter subscription call-to-actions ensure that the user is kept engaged throughout the site journey.
DA Website
Key links are highlighted in the right-hand sidebar, and they’ve been well-thought through: encapsulating most of the typical user journeys through the website.
DA sidebar
The blog-style format means that every news piece is tagged, allowing easy searches by category. The user is offered multiple ways to navigate the site, so that they will easily find what they’re looking for.
DA category search
They’ve used a deep footer which splits out the more unusual user journeys: it provides quick links for DA members and those looking for other common tasks, like following the DA on Twitter.
DA footer
Special features that deserve mention include a searchable events calendar, an interactive map and a link to the DA portal on GiveGain.com which allows direct online credit card payments to the party. The website also incorporates nifty sections like a ‘Corruption Reporter’.
Political parties are premised on their people, and it’s good to see that at least one local party’s website is offering value and utilising the web as a locus for organisation. It’s not a site that’s going to win awards, but it is an excellent example of how a website can be simple and elegant, keeping the user’s needs at the centre of their design. Looking at some of the other political websites (See Cope, ANC, IFP and Freedom Front) in SA, it’s clear that the DA is lightyears ahead in this regard.
*GottaQuirk and the writer are not commenting on the DA’s policies or principles in this article, merely its website.
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Nice post.
It appears none of the other sites have a way of reporting corruption?
Terrible IFP site with the scroll down panel in the centre, although it was the only party on my Google SERP when I searched for "political parties south africa"
Posted by NicP on 2011/03/07