A former associate of mine now works at First Insights. He sent an e-mail yesterday regarding a usability study recently conducted on the Obama and McCain websites. The goal of the study was to determine whether or not “undecided voters around the country could be swayed to vote for either candidate based on exploring their sites.”
We partnered with Murray Hill Centers to conduct one-on-one qualitative usability testing interviews in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The 43 participants from 19-77 years old were asked a series of task-oriented questions as they explored the Obama and McCain Web sites for 60 minutes.
In terms of the critical questions about the sites and how much influence they are having, First Insights uncovered the following:
- At the conclusion of the task portion of the testing users were asked which site was more user friendly:
- 22 participants chose the Obama site, 16 participants chose the McCain site, 5 thought both were equally user friendly
- At the end of the entire interview when asked if either site had changed their status as an undecided voter, and if they were now leaning toward a specific candidate, participants responded as follows:
- Now leaning toward Obama – 12, Now leaning toward McCain – 4, Still undecided – 27
Other key findings include:
- The Obama splash page presented a major obstacle for 15 of 43 participants as they did not see the Skip Signup button at the bottom of the page.
- Almost all participants wanted to learn more about the personal backgrounds of the candidates and thought the Meet Barack Obama & About John McCain pages should have additional details.
- Neither site presented the candidates legislative and/or voting records — a major omission.
- The Obama site captures more opportunities to leverage Web 2.0 technologies while the McCain site did not during the time of our testing.
The full 65 page white paper and video clips are available at http://www.firstinsights.com/articles.htm