Presidential Candidates’ Web Sites

All over our great country, voters like me are deciding which candidate to support for president. All of the candidates are using their web sites effectively to communicate, raise money, and get people involved.I decided to go ahead and grade these sites and to look for differences among them. I went over to one of my favorite blogs, How to Change the World to snag a tool that Guy Kawasaki blogged about a while back: Website Grader. They all scored very high and all had pretty much the same stuff: get involved, give money, check the issues, etc. There was, however, one interesting area of differentiation: readability level. Check out the sites and scores below (I placed them in alphabetical order by last name).

Hillary Clinton

Website Grader grade: 99
Website Grader Readability Level: College Undergraduate

John McCain

Website Grader grade: 99
Website Grader Readability Level: Primary / Elementary School

Barack Obama

Website Grader grade: 98
Website Grader Readability Level: Advanced / Doctoral Degree

Ted Simpson
March Guest Blogger

Director, Technologist, Dragoman & Project Manager
Maryland Institute College of Art
tsimpson@mica.edu

Add comment March 3rd, 2008