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Creating political websites: Balancing complexity & usability

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Knowledge, Technology & Policy

Abstract

By integrating what is known about how people navigate the overwhelming tide of political information with research on usability, the experiments reported in this article aim to provide information about how to create political websites that are usable, engaging, and educational. This article reports on a series of four different experiments (n=478) comparing a simpler and more easily navigable website to a more complex and interactive website. The types of websites tested include: adwatches, issue grids, candidate biographies, and campaign finance sites. The results suggest that simpler, more navigable websites are preferred to more interactive websites with web tools. Results also suggest that more political information is not always preferable, as in most cases, participants rated sites with more political information lower.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Annenberg School for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania, USA

    Russell Tisinger, Natalie Stroud, Kimberly Meltzer, Brett Mueller & Rachel Gans

Authors
  1. Russell Tisinger
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  2. Natalie Stroud
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  3. Kimberly Meltzer
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  4. Brett Mueller
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  5. Rachel Gans
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Additional information

Brett A. Mueller received a master’s degree from the Annenberg School for Communication in 2002. This research is supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts; Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Primary Investigator. The authors than Joyce Garczynski, Jon Stromer-Galley, Svjetlana Tepavcevic, and Dannagal Goldthwaite Young for their work on the project.

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Tisinger, R., Stroud, N., Meltzer, K. et al. Creating political websites: Balancing complexity & usability. Know Techn Pol 18, 41–51 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-005-1024-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-005-1024-9

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