When you look at John Fetterman, your first impression probably isn’t that he’s a politician. However, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government graduate and current mayor of Braddock, PA is one of the most dedicated politicians you’re bound to meet. Now in his third term as mayor, Fetterman has decided to run for the U.S. Senate—and every campaign needs an exceptional website, right?
“…a clear color palette of warm earthy tones that invoke Fetterman’s image of being down to earth and not at all flashy—an everyday man who cares more about his community than appearances.”
The layout of Fetterman’s website is fairly smooth, with a clear color palette of warm earthy tones that invoke Fetterman’s image of being down to earth and not at all flashy—an everyday man who cares more about his community than appearances. The prioritized information above-the-fold of the homepage is an image of Fetterman, a link to sign up for his email list, and a link to the donation page. Below that is a snippet from the “About John” page with a link to “Read More” on the full page.
Beneath that are quotes from articles about Fetterman in big time publications. This is a great addition to the site, but could be even further improved by adding links to those articles if they are available!
Next are links to t-shirts that are available to purchase, his launch video, links for the email list and donations again, social media, and finally navigation at the bottom of the page. This is quite a lot for a home page, however the flow of the website is smooth and the sections are divided by color so it’s easy to navigate. One major thing the site could benefit from, however, is moving more navigation to the top of the page so users don’t have to scroll to the bottom of the (fairly long) page to explore the site.
One great feature of the site is the “About” pages. Not only is there one for John, but there’s one for his wife, Gisele, too! Gisele Fetterman has been a huge part of the campaign and the change that has begun in Braddock, as she’s involved with many charity organizations, so it’s good that she has her own space on the site as well. Another smart move on the website is in the link to join the email list. Once you sign up for the emails, the site directs you to the donation page—as many people signing up for the emails are bound to be supporters, willing to donate.
In terms of the mobile site, the layout is the same, with fewer features. The homepage on the mobile site is limited to just the donations link, press quotes, email list sign up, social media links, and navigation. Overall, it’s very clean, simple, appealing, and easy to use.
The site has no dead links and in terms of devices, the site translates very well to mobile and tablet devices with no need for horizontal scrolling. The site only had 10 HTML errors, but it did have 103 CSS errors, which they may want to check out. It also had 10 errors and seven alerts when put through the WAVE test (which checks for accessibility for those with disabilities) so the site could be improved a bit with a few easy fixes such as including missing alternative text or adding form labels to make it more accessible.
The homepage takes 5-15 seconds to fully load (the first byte loading in 0.8 seconds). It also is “code-heavy”, weighing 4.3MB (the average is 1.75MB) and has 84 requests (the average is 70). For all three of these metrics, lower numbers are better; leaner equals faster!
One way to improve page speed is to reorder how the JavaScript and CSS loads (as well as just decreasing the amount JavaScript in general). Other helpful actions include optimizing and specifying dimensions on all images; and also: make use of a browser caching tool. In general all of this means that there are a lot of web objects and script all competing for resources on that one page. Minifying and organizing these elements will make the site faster and more efficient!
“In general all of this means that there are a lot of web objects and script all competing for resources on that one page. Minifying and organizing these elements will make the site faster and more efficient!”
There are a lot of great elements on this site and with a little maintenance it could be really top notch! Until then, we’ve definitely got our eye on John Fetterman and we’re interested to see what great things he has in store for Braddock—and potentially the Senate.
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