Joseph Sommers For Supreme Court

Site development was jump-started due to a basic draft design that had been created already. Finishing touches were put on it and actual site development began on the first day, with a draft site in place by the next afternoon. Minimal graphics help to insure a fast loading site, especially important given the broad demographics of potential visitors, from the fastest of high-speed broadband to the slowest of dial-up users.

A graphic header was included for a richer visual, which was actually positioned over html text to insure that users viewing without images displayed, search engines, and any disabled visitors would still be presented with key textual information. The site was developed in XHTML/CSS as a table-less design, highly accessible and scalable text.

A contact form was put in place to help capture important information and route based on media requests, questions for Joe, and volunteers. Additionally, encoded (to hide from spambots) mailto email links were included along with the postal address.

Site navigation included a site locator highlighting to help indicate which section visitors were viewing. Here you can see the bottom Contact link is highlighted.

An important aspect to drive support was the addition of the easily copied and pasted links to the site's home page and a copy of a letter presented to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Being a new domain and website and operating under a very small window for campaigning, attracting links to the site from other sites would be critically important to help boost search engine authority as well as delivering interested visitors.

Like any campaign, the ability to secure contributions and donations was critically important. Rather than utilizing a PDF or other print and write-in form, an html form was created that would allow contributors to quickly provide their information by typing it directly into the form, and then printing out to be mailed in with their check. The ability to type in information would also prove valuable on the receiving end, helping to avoid deciphering handwritten information.

The entire site is printer friendly, which strips away unnecessary elements like site navigation, and much of the graphic elements. This was especially useful on the printable donation form, which nicely formatted the form for print and kept all of the information to one page.

Perhaps the most important section of the site for many would be the copy of the letter Joe Sommers delivered to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, raising issues and questions of concern. There were a few important sections that referenced footnoted information contained at the end of the letter. Here you can see a footnote (#3) that has been hovered over, which provides the footnoted information on the spot as well as a link to the footnote section. At the bottom of the image, you can also see a footnote (#4) as all footnotes appear prior to being hovered over.

The footnote section at the end of the page again references all of the footnotes in one place as well as links to return to the specific sections of the letter.