I have to say, I’m not that impressed with MSNBC’s Presidential Candidates and Issues Matrix. The matrix is a grid representing each of the past and present candidates in the 2008 presidential race, and where they all stand on five big issues. There is a lot of information in this package, and the creators did a good job of keeping it fairly contained. I like how info boxes about each of the candidates and about the issues appear when the mouse lingers near a candidate or issue. Like this:
But, I think there is too much information the users don’t really need and not enough that they do. Example: all the candidates, even those who are no longer in the race, are still included (along with their descriptions and all their positions on the issues). Example: look at all the blank spaces in that screen shot above! Do we really care about those former candidates and their positions anymore? I’d say not. Their mug shots and info boxes make the page too cluttered with old news.
Conversely, the “All User’s Ratings” page is lacking and, to me, a bit boring. Here, users can click on a week and see how other users have rated each candidate on each issue. A color scale represents the degree of support each candidate has received from users on each issue. But, the color scale is too limited. It consists of dark reds and greens. Because some of the colors are so dark, it’s just too difficult to tell where most of the squares fall on the color scale. As you may be able to see below, the rating colors do not stand out enough from the black squares on the rest of the page.
When I’m on this page I also want to know how many people have voted on each portion of the issues matrix. For instance, is Hillary Clinton’s user rating on energy based on one person’s vote, or the votes of several hundred people? There’s no way to know on this Web site.
I don’t think this is a Web site people will want to visit more than once and, given the fact that there’s a time element dependent on visitors each week (the voting), that is a problem. The only things that seem to change are candidates’ photos (they get grayed out when the candidates are no longer in the race) and the hard-to-understand color rankings. To me, it just doesn’t seem that interesting.
