www.MegWhitman.com

Project Background

When I came on board (June '09) to help Tokoni build out additional features and functionality to the MW.com website the volume of content posted to the site was no where near what it would grow to be as the primary battle and eventually the general election heated up. By the time the campaign was 6 months away from the primary we began discussing a redesign of the homepage. So I began my research, stakeholder interviews and looking at our site analytics.

Challenge

The issues with the page as I presented them to campaign were as follows:

  • 66% of the homepage real estate and content falls below the fold for 93% of web browsers
  • Current homepage from the top of the page to just below the 3 Policy buttons is 1500px tall
  • In order to add the latest story/video/featured endorser content is pushed down the page, below the fold.
  • No consistency between TV ads, campaign brand and site. Example: The policies are now being portrayed on television as 1. Jobs, 2. Spending, 3. Education. On the site we have the long Hero banner graphics that rotate and say Meg Whitman on Jobs, etc., then at the bottom we have “Create Jobs”. None of them look like the other.
  • With so much information on the page its unclear where the paths are for visitors, with the exception of Volunteer and Make a Donation. The campaigns response to this is to make important things LARGER.
  • So much of the information is formatted the same its difficult to tell what content talks about her Policies, News, Professional/Personal background, Endorsers.
  • Little to no brand essence is communicated via the website except for the color palette and logo.

Goals for the solution that I proposed were:

  • The design needs to present the existing amount of information but in an easier to scan and visually categorized layout.
  • The new homepage design needs to scale and provide flexibility in its modules.
  • Need to fold in more of the brand Personality.
  • Consistency between communication, especially Advertising and the website.
  • Placement above fold for highlighting multiple Priority One items, such as Latest TV ad, Latest Endorser, Breaking News, Etc.,

Results of the redesign

Consistently from the time the homepage launched time on site increased on average up from 3 minutes 49 seconds over the previous 6 months to an average of 9 minutes 16 seconds. That's on the entire site, but looking at the metrics for just the home page it went up from pre-redesign of 1 minute 40 seconds to 6 minutes 55 seconds for the same time samples. What would I attribute that much of a jump in that one metric to? The campaign used to be able to only display one, maybe two stories with videos in them on the homepage. The videos almost always play in a modal window so visitors stay on that page. Videos on average are about 60 seconds. With the new homepage the campaign can feature up to 10 stories and each of them could have a video. Not only that but there is a dedicated section on the homepage just for ads, so there's no competition or tough decision to make between whether the commercial or a new story gets homepage real estate. They both do. As do the weekly photos that play in a slide show, again in a modal window. The idea was that we wanted to create on the homepage clear paths to help visitors answer those basic questions first thing when they hit the homepage. Who is Meg? What are her policies? What's new that's been getting covered in the press? And what has she been doing?
As projects go, I think we hit a homerun by increasing time on site and time on the homepage so effectively. It means people are interested in the content the campaign is providing them and people are engaged.