CDG Interactive Blog

It’s been quite a week here in our humble city, what with that little shindig called the Inauguration and all. (An event that several CDG employees witnessed firsthand.)

Tuesday saw not only the historic ascendency of Barack Obama to the presidency, but also the launch of a new White House website. Here at CDG, we took a moment to review the new site, applaud some positive changes, and offer some humble suggestions for improvement.

Change We Can Believe In

• A timely launch
  
  • The new site went live mere minutes after Obama took the (somewhat mangled) Oath of Office
• Joining the blogosphere
  • The new White House blog is a centrepiece of the new site, and the new RSS feed is also a nice touch.
• Consistency of branding
  • In terms of design aesthetic, tone, and layout, the site is a natural extension of Obama’s campaign site and the transition site, change.gov.
• Search engine savvy
  • Unlike the previous White House site, this iteration is indexable in search engines. Granted, a site as prominent as the White House probably doesn’t need to worry about search engine optimization (SEO), but it’s nice to see it adhere to some best practices.
• Comprehensive (new) content
  
  • Interested in learning about President Obama’s agenda? There’s information aplenty about everything from the economy to homeland security.

That’s Not Change; That’s More of the Same.

• Confusing navigation structure
  
  • Once you get past the clean, airy homepage, you have to deal with an inconsistent and clumsy internal navigation. The secondary navigation appears (and disappears) on the right side of the main content well.
• Poor accessibility practices
  • The small font size and its contrast levels on many graphic elements are big accessibility no-nos. The site could improve this by providing a way to adjust the font size and/or the contrast. (For a good example of this, see AFB’s Family Connect).
• Eradication of old content
  • Want to see a press release from January 19th, 2009? Or read an executive order by President George W. Bush? You’re out of luck.
• Bring on the Spam
  
  • Curiously, the site doesn’t incorporate CAPTCHA on its forms to help combat spammers and other threats.

As the new administration takes shape, we’ll keep an eye on the virtual White House and watch with interest how they evolve its web presence. And if President Obama wants to swing by and talk to us about our recommendations, well, he has an open invitation to visit our office. (We are neighbors, after all.)

Tell us, what do you think of the new whitehouse.gov?