December 11th, 2005

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Web Design
9 Comments »

Conservative.ca Lifted from RNC Site

In the previous entry, Tod and I discuss how the Conservatives have the best website of any of the Canadian parties. This is in part because the Conservatives have clearly copied the design and architecture of the US Republicans’ site. Matthew Good first pointed this out, and I borrow his screenshots to elucidate:

I don’t mean to suggest any impropriety here–I don’t know the whole story. If the CPC didn’t ask to borrow the site structure, then it’s a pretty bold ripoff. If they did, all power to them. As sites go, it’s pretty good. I imagine that the RNC spent some money building the right kind of site to raise funds and awareness, and the CPC is wise to stand on their shoulders.

Comments: 9 Responses so far

Ross
December 12th, 2005
2:03 am

Blah - I can’t stand the Conservative website, in Firefox. The menus go all wonky on me. Too much glitter, IMO. In fact, the NDP site has a much cleaner layout (colour choices notwithstanding).

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Gwen
December 12th, 2005
5:11 am

Were the typos (Conversative and Replubican) deliberate?

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Anonalogue
December 12th, 2005
6:15 am

You are a much better man than this, Darren. Raise your game, old chap!

For example: I’d go with “Why don’t any of the party sites conform to W3 Web Accessibility guidelines?”

All of these sites would flunk the government’s own Treasury Board guidelines for accessibility! Flash is not accessible, neither is javascript based navitation, nor PDF.

Where is the text-only version for Lynx users, diabled folks, and whatnot? Go ahead and check the gubmint’s Common Look And Feel rules , but you know teh frontend, my special web guru friend, and know I’m right about this…

See how nonparitisan analysis is so much better than spurrious partisan vitriol? Hahahaha! Up with people!

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Darren
December 12th, 2005
8:25 am

Gwen: Nope, just lazy and tired.

Anonalogue: Err…I’m not sure who you’re implying that I’m partisan for. See, I’ve never voted for the Conservatives. You make a valid point about W3C standards but you know what? Nearly nobody cares about them.

I’m afraid I haven’t got the time at this moment to offer a thorough comparative analysis of the sites, so you’ll have to live with my opinion for the time being.

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Jon J
December 12th, 2005
9:01 am

When you said “RNC,” I instantly recognizd “Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.” Took me a minute to actually catch on.

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'nee
December 12th, 2005
9:52 am

This plays right into the hands of my current pet conspiracy theory that the CPC and the GOP are actually all the same guys but with different haircuts. Or wait, no, scratch the haircuts part.

Amusing that the CPC site has nicer graphics.

Also, Anonalogue, don’t assume that the Flash isn’t accessible. Flash can be made accessible easily - it requires a bit more work than adding alt tags in regular HTML, but Flash requires more work to do anything.

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jd
December 12th, 2005
7:23 pm

i know that Darren is not suggesting theft on the part of the CPC, but, generally, is it possible to steal the layout of a website? are the design elements of a site intellectual property?

i’m not asking as a moral question. i wonder about the legal issues.

when a new company says, “We really like X-Brand’s site. Make ours look like that, please,” what do you do?

as a side note, it’s interesting how the GOP has a really big donate button, but the CPC does not.

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Andrea
December 13th, 2005
12:26 am

Back when web development firms were the new new thing, I hired a local Vancouver company to develop an intranet. I will refrain from naming names, since it will be obvious to the only person reading this who would care anyway. After the site had been delivered, I looked at the source code. Every single page said that it had been developed for BC Hydro and all of the tags and formatting matched that of BC Hydro’s 1998ish website. Since BC Hydro was this company’s most prominent client….well, this led to quite a series of negotiations. I won’t go into detail. But it did make me wonder how many other clients got the same pages. I suppose it was more an issue of the firm not covering its tracks in reusing its own code. I can’t remember now whether it was work for hire or a licensing agreement.

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larry price
December 17th, 2005
10:33 am

CBC Harper joke
I saw Harper on TV in a turtle neck sweater! He looked uncomfortable. I could see that he just wanted to go home, put on a suit and tie, lie down and relax.

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