ElectionsOnline was founded in 2002 with a super simple website. We’ll call it a starter site. That was replaced in 2004 with what was at the time a very mature design by an exceptionally talented designer. Some form of that design persisted until 2019! The site changed along the way. Imagery was modernized a few times; the page layout was widened as computer displays got larger and higher resolution; it was made responsive when the rise of the mini-browsers on mobile devices demanded a website that was totally different from that seen on desktops; and of course the user interaction tools on the content itself had been kept up-to-date all along. But the general layout of the site always remained heavily inspired by that 2004 design. That’s a mind-blowing 15-year run and testimony to how very flexible and enduring that design was.
But in 2019 it was finally time for it to be retired in favor of something totally new from the ground up. One that supports the very effective hero images that have grown so popular. And so, voilà, here you are!
Employing a horizontal menu across the top, rather than a vertical menu down the left side, means more screen estate is available for content and there are some places across the site where that is put to good use. And yes, those impactful hero images mentioned above appear all across the site. A very conscious effort was made to make sure the baby is not thrown out with the bath water. The election management tools inside the client section of the site are unchanged. Site tools such as login and search remain positioned where they always have, in the upper right-hand corner of the site. The URLs and the top level headings in the navigation are mostly unchanged.
It’s an exciting day in ElectionsOnline’s history, now we begin counting the years to see how much of this new site can prove as durable as its predecessor.
