What would you do?
They are open for suggestions / tools / modifications / whatever we can throw at them.
What is missing? What could be better?
I'm not going to be nice, and couch these as soft suggestions, but it's easier for me to critique when I'm being mean. Take it at face value, they're all just ideas at 2am...
I haven't spent that much time looking at it, and admittedly I haven't spent too much time looking at the hack4dean stuff. I'm not really a php guy, so these things might be redundant with ideas you've already got, and are being implemented, but you can take this as an outside man-on-the-street opinoin. After a quick glance over deanforamerica.com, I think it needs to be more targeted. More information density. The current design wastes a lot of space in not-so-intuative ways. There are links without underlines, and text in the same area that aren't links, but could be. The font sizes are set in pt's, but pt's aren't the same cross-platform, px's are but they don't scale for the vision impaired, em's scale and are the same on both platforms.
Personalization is important, especially with this sort of deal. I should be able to register and suddenly my dean homepage should become an action packed 'do this now' and 'here's what's happening' page for my person and locale. If I'm a construction worker in Indianapolis, the system should know that, and be able to offer me content customized to my situation. I don't need a ton of text on the opening page, it's hard to read squished between two columns, and doesn't print worth a ca-ca. The graphic design is horribly Wal-Mart generic. I could photoshop something better than this in my sleep. It should be inspiring, and speak to what people are concerned about. IE: Americans of all backgrounds living in freedom and security with jobs. And it should be fast, disgustingly backwards compatible, and chunked into templates that are easy to collect.
Throw up a 'profiled dean supporter of the week'. Make it something inspiring, a health care worker from Pittsburgh or a auto parts assembler from Detroit or a Laundromat operator in Lubbock. Let them give some reasons why they think the country's in the pits, and the reasons why Dean's going to fix it. Even better if it's regional, so if I'm in Texas I see one from the southwestern states. It speaks to me, and makes me even more convinced this is the right thing to be doing. Apple's switch commercials may or may not have gotten people to switch to the Mac, but they got a ton of press, and people love the 'real-life' aspects of them.
Webcams from the HQ! We want to see those volunteers pulling the all nighters. Put up a bus sign so we can type in messages of encouragement. Anything to make people feel like they're a part of things, and can help, even if they're not manning the phones or pounding the pavement.
Tight little boxes of information are your friend. I personally hate those little tooltips that come up when you open an application, but there are a ton of little factoids out there that can be pretty useful. Maybe a world-watch public opinion poll meter.
A content block suggesting a random 'easy thing you can do to help the dean campaign' somewhere above the fold. It doesn't have to be big, just a sentance or two with a suggestion, and a link to more information about it. I don't need every option on the opening page, just a random one or two, and a link to the list so if I'm really spunky I can go to town.
The dean campaign should be able to send news alerts out targeted to specific areas. If I'm in Austin and there's a meetup, or there's a news program I should watch that mentions the dean campaign, it should show up on my page when I log in. I should have the option to have really important alerts sent to an e-mail address, maybe SMS'ed to a cell phone. Maybe tie into instant messaging networks and deliver updates that way.
I should be able to send e-mail to my friends pointing them to a story or posting at deanforamerica.com from a form linked to obviously from the article, adding a little blurb at the top describing why I think it's important, if I want to. Anything that spreads the word is good. Things that mobilize people are good. I should be able to easily (3 clicks from the homepage, max) contact my local Dean for president person.
Technically, I'd get as far away from custom java platforms as I could. If php/mod_perl and mysql/postgresql can't do it, it doesn't need to be done, IMHO, plus it's a whole lot easier and cheaper to scale. If I were feeling spunky, I'd write some custom windows apps that you could install that would notify you if there was something new for you to read on your customized homepage. Web services, baby, make XML work for you. RSS that mofo, I want to be able to syndicate it 6 ways from sunday. I should have RSS feeds for Austin news, RSS feeds for Texas news, RSS feeds for national news, hell maybe even a custom RSS generator that I could define my interests and it would collate them for me.
I realize these are pretty tall orders, and back in the dot-com days we'd be talking about a couple mil just for the project plan, but using open source tools and experienced coders, you should be able to knock it out pretty quick.
--
Jeff Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.keika.co.uk/
