Political Social Networks: WhereIStand

WhereIStand was brought to my attention today as a site that offers internet users a place for citizen journalism and social networking with a political slant. It enters an increasingly crowded field that includes sites such as 20DC, Vocal Nation, Election TV, If I'm President, Essembly and more. With so many sites trying to capitalize on Politics and Web 2.0 in this election cycle, a site must stand out against the rest to succeed.

Well, WhereIStand certainly stands out, but not necessarily in a good way. In an age where people are flooded with Web 2.0 options, your first impression is vital. Sites should be clear, easy to navigate, with a simple, easy to understand reason for being and a clean layout that doesn't scare people off. My first thought on looking at the site was “Wow, what a hot mess this is.”

Something about the color scheme and the odd organization of information, when combined with the oddly large black descriptor bar just totally turned me off. I kept clicking to view the rest of the site, because I know it isn't fair to judge a site completely by its “cover”, so to speak, but I wondered how many average people they lose who don't have patience or time to unravel the jumble? I'm guessing quite a few.

The site design definitely doesn't cater its presentation to the average not-very-techno-savvy web surfer who may be looking for political information. That demographic may not be their goal audience, but it makes up quite a bit of web traffic, especially in an election year. It's important to design for all eyes, not just people who know your niche.

Once you get past the front door of the site, you are better able to focus on the sections the site has to offer. These are Issues, Comparisons, Blogs, People and Opinions. The Comparisons area has you compare things, like candidates, to see how alike they are (for example, Clinton and Obama show up as 83% alike on issues). Issues lets site users post political issues for other users to vote on. Much like some of the other sites we have reviewed, the political content has been somewhat diluted with random topics that have no relevance. It would be nice to see some editing to prevent the site from straying away from politics like others have done.

Opinions gives users a place to share their views on various topics. The site gets points for verifying opinions credited to public figures and organizations. Unfortunately it loses points because the disorganized and cluttered feel of the front page carries throughout the site. The harder I had to work to read posts and find what I was interested in, the less I wanted to be there trying it out.

The site does offer social features in keeping with Web 2.0 standards, like a place for users to blog and a place to meet other users. In fact the People area is the closest thing to organized on the entire site, breaking people into various categories from bloggers to political figures and more. This part of the site was the easiest to navigate. the search for the site functions fairly well, which helped immensely. That doesn't change the need to clean up the look and feel of the site overall, making it easier to understand and more user friendly.

Because other political sites are out there that are doing it better, I probably won't be back to WhereIStand any time soon. With time at a premium for me, I can't afford to keep sites in my bookmarks that require this much hunting and pecking to use. I'd love to see this site become more streamlined and spend a little more time targeting the less technical internet user who is out there looking for just the kind of citizen journalism they seem to offer.