4 Seconds Until Goodbye

“You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about within four seconds. If you can't, your site has failed.” This was #2 on the list of Vince Flanders’ Web Pages That Suck.

All sarcasm aside, I’m glad I had this spelled out for me. We know what it’s like to visit a site and have no clue what it is, but I never thought it took as little as four seconds until frustration sets in. It sounds accurate. The pressure is on.

In terms of a campaign, the user will be coming to the site intentionally so the political message on the home page will convince our guest to stay for a while. We need to resort to our own experiences to figure out what to present. Based on my experience of looking at websites for politicians, I find myself curious to know the following items without clicking on a link:

1) Is the candidate a Republican, Democrat, or Independent?
2) What part of the state is being represented?
3) I want to see a picture of the signature landscape of the state or region.
4) What are the three most important issues of the day?
5) What is the most recent press release or news from their office?

As we progress through this class, I’m awfully curious to learn if this is an effective approach.