NI Election 2011: Viewing the party websites on an iPhone

This Thursday 5th May 2011 we have a local election here in Northern Ireland. I wouldn’t be that up to speed on local politics. I’ve a fair idea of what each party stands for but don’t know the specifics. So on Sunday afternoon, while lounging around watching the Eastenders omnibus, I looked up the main party websites on the iPhone to see what the deal was.

The main question I had in my head was “What do you stand for and why should I vote for you in this election?” but I also wanted to see how they coped in the modern day era of mobile devices (smartphones, tablets etc).

NI political party websites viewed on iPhones

Here are screenshots of my first view when looking up their respective websites.

The examples I’ve used below are of Northern Ireland’s top 5 parties (as of the last election), ordered A-Z.

Alliance

What’s good

• Clear intro to what the party is and stands for

Could be better

• Not optimised for mobile
• Could do with a call to action to guide me towards the 2011 election page
• Navigation doesn't actually work for iPhone at all

DUP

What’s good

• List of 7 priorities on homepage
• iPhone app available to download

Could be better

• Not optimised for mobile
• Video doesn't work on iPhone
• Could do with a call to action to guide me towards the 2011 election page

SDLP

What’s good

• Clear intro and call to action for the 2011 election
• From a design perspective, definitely the most aesthetically pleasing
• Video works fine on iPhone

Could be better

• Not optimised for mobile

Sinn Fein

What’s good

• Video works fine on iPhone

Could be better

• Not optimised for mobile
• A splash page with a video blocks me off from the main site (the main site link bottom left doesn't actually work)
• Could do with a call to action to guide me towards the 2011 election page

UUP

What’s good

• Separate navigation for election

Could be better

• Not optimised for mobile
• Rotating banner lacks call to action

Accessibility

The two major accessibility issues that jumped out for me were:

1. Alliance website main navigation didn't function at all on iPhone
2. DUP's video didn't work/load on iPhone (it's a YouTube video so I'm not sure why this is)

Loading and page weight

Page download time is also an issue for mobile devices. Mobile users may not have wifi access and they may be paying for the amount of data they download, so the smaller the ‘page weight’ the better.

A quick look at Firefox and YSlow shows how large each site is (remember none of the sites are serving up a mobile optimised site).

• Alliance: 821.2K
• DUP: 1026.5K
• SDLP: 628.3K
• Sinn Fein: 456.2K
• UUP: 1219.7K

Note that these figures don’t take into account the video size.

Is it important for your website to be mobile optimised?

Time and budget are an issue for any project and other things often take priority. But for a campaign where you’re trying to get as many people to back you as possible, you want to make sure everything is accessible to iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and other smartphone users.

A responsive design is one option or serving up a separate mobile site is another. At the very least the main desktop version of the website should work on a mobile.

Should the local parties have invested in mobile optimised websites? Does it matter? Have you come across any good mobile optimised political websites?