Information architecture on the websites of major American political parties: Qualitative-heuristic assessment and comparative analysis

Abstract

The Internet has become a very important tool of modern political communication. Political parties use it for a variety of purposes, including relationships with its supporters and potential voters. Therefore, the website of any political party is an important channel of communication. Such a website should be user-friendly to various audiences. The purpose of the article is to assess the quality of information architecture (IA) on the websites of the two major American political parties: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Triangulation of methods was used in the research: a qualitative-heuristic assessment of the IA on the mentioned websites, expert assessment and a comparative analysis. Within the examined websites, there is a noticeable lack of some important components of the IA. The website of the Republican Party is slightly better in terms of quality than the website of Democratic Party by 14.09%. The results of the conducted research may have an impact not only on the assessment of the technological advancement of parties but also on the image and public perception, and therefore also the effectiveness in reaching voters of a given party. This approach should contribute to the development of websites research in order to improve the quality of user experience and information processes.