Site Purpose and Design Decisions

“Home on the Fringe: An Introduction to American Minority Political Parties” is a very brief overview and introduction to the lesser-known American political parties.  We aim to provide some answers to people seeking to become more familiar with the political process and involved parties.  The site, we believe, is relatively easy to navigate due to its clear, divisive organization.  Determining where certain parties fell within that spectrum proved to be somewhat daunting.  Subjectivity had to override objectivity in these content cataloging choices.

We would also believe this site covers the entire political spectrum, in terms of what was included and what was not.  Though it wouldn’t be possible (within the time constraints of this particular project) to present a clear picture of every single minority political party in the U.S., we feel that we were as inclusive as possible in terms of spectrum representation.  By this we mean that moderate left-of-center as well as right-of-center groups were included, not simply the extremes on both sides.

Another goal of this project was, for us, to see if we could determine the validity of a “spectrum” theme in the classification of parties.  Was our choice of a linear model the most appropriate?  This, as we found out, was ultimately closely tied to the final structure and navigational construction of our site.

As briefly mentioned above, we think that our audience will, in general terms, be composed of individuals looking to inform themselves about politics.  More specifically, our site may serve as a sort of “stepping stone” for further investigation.  The links that we provided to the official websites will be helpful to those seeking more information.  We do not aim to provide comprehensive information about the parties here.  Rather, we are looking to provide brief introductions to each of the chosen parties. 

To narrow our focus in terms of audience means that we had to make some choices that guided our presentation of the information.  For example, since we created the site as a brief introduction, we did not lace the site with complex language and unnecessary references to complex political theory.  This also was a determining factor in the length of each introduction.  We could have easily loaded up the page almost to no end with lengthy descriptions and explanations.  We chose, instead, to narrow our content, and placed a greater value on conciseness than absolute thoroughness.  

We agree that the site is aimed to inform people that are already of voting-age.  We are most likely going to appeal to younger voters, probably those within or near the 18 to 30 range.  We chose this group of society because we felt that those at this stage of social development aren’t getting the kind of reliable information that they may need to make informed decisions.  For example, we know many college students that are, for one reason or another, much more liberal than the rest of the general public.  In fact, they are more liberal, in terms of political ideology, than the members of the party that they have chosen to associate with.  We’re talking here about a person whose values really align with, say, the Green Party agenda, but who don’t associate with that group because of a lack of understanding, so they just align with the more liberal of the two major parties, the Democrats. 

Though we acknowledged that we were aiming to introduce a particular segment of society to alternative political parties, we also needed to plan for the unexpected visitor.  We needed to make sure that our site was accessible to any adult that surfs by, because they deserve a well-planned and easily navigable site that makes sense to them as well.

Essentially, our site was designed to provide and introduction to fringe politics.  The linear theme that we used ultimately shaped the navigation design of the site as well as the content.  We have thirty-three pages: one main page, three index pages (left, center, and right), and thirty individual pages, each containing information about one political party.  Using another thematic model would have altered this structure in significant ways. 

We also believe that this site differs from traditional sites that simply list the political parties and don’t provide any context.  The format that we chose to build from enables users to physically click either left or right and go there to seek out parties that fall within those constraints.  This navigational tool, accompanied by effective hierarchy and information architecture, allows for a better understanding of fringe politics.

Individual Work

• Pol did a lot of the research about fringe parties in general. He wrote up the site plan, and drew the final sketches of how our site was going to look. He also controlled the computer and offered ideas while Brian and Kelli pointed and made suggestions about how to draw things or what colors to use. Pol did the right-leaning political parties.
• Brian did a lot of research on the left leaning parties. He helped make decisions in site design and content by making suggestions during work time. His party descriptions were detailed and thorough.
• Kelli did research on third parties. She also drew up some site maps and storyboards. She contributed to the design and content by making suggestions about site design and content. Kelli did the centrist parties.
• We all learned a lot about Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Macintoshes, did a lot of research, and did a lot of writing for the site.
• We did not use any templates or code from an outside source, but our party logos were taken either from the party's Web site or from http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm. We took the logos of the parties that we were using on our site.
  
• Our banner we made ourselves in photoshop using the logos that we got from the politics1 Web site.

Site Reviews

Directory of U.S. Political Parties

http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm

This page is where we found many of the political parties that we may cover.  It is similar to our idea for our site, but has a few major differences.  We like the content in terms of sheer number of parties listed.  We also really liked the summaries of their ideology and motivations.  The alphabetical nature of the list was helpful, but was ineffective in aiding the user in determining the classification of the party.  We also really liked the linked party titles as well as the associated graphics.

The History Guy: United States Political Parties

http://www.historyguy.com/Politicalparties.html

The History Guy’s website is, compared to the previous inventory, a little sparse in terms of content.  He focuses here on the two major parties with links to their associated websites.  When you scroll down a bit, you find the third party section.  However, only 10 separate third parties are identified.  We liked how he included the statements from the political parties when describing the groups, and not his own opinion, as did the previous author.

University of Michigan Documents Center

Political Science Resources

United States Politics

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psusp.html#party

Though this site is similar to the other sites in terms of information architecture, we do like the other resources available to the user on this page that could possibly enhance the understanding of political structures.  For example, though the page also has a pretty good list of political parties, it also provides the user with links to numerous government, private, political action and educational sites.  Though we really like the content, its organization is somewhat complex and ineffective.  Some links jump to other websites, while others simply drop down more options. 

United States of America (1:5 parties)

http://www.politicalresources.net/usa1.htm

After shuffling through numerous sites filled with simple lists organized merely by the first letters of the party, we came across this site.  Though it isn’t the most professional-looking site, they do organize the information in a different way than the others.  Here, the author(s) analyzed the parties and made choices about the placement of them.  They used the categories reformers, libertarians, green, progressive, socialist, communist/Marxist, conservative, nationalist, and various, with many, unfortunately, falling under various.  However, they are utilizing a system of information architecture completely different from the others, and one we hope to build upon and improve in our site.