the question of usability

Anyone who uses the Internet, or even reads a magazine or newspaper regularly, makes a decision on whether or not to read something based on its usability. It may not be a conscious decision, but given the choice between two websites of similar content, a person is going to choose the more user-friendly one. For example, I receive both New York Times and Washington Post headlines in my email daily. I like the NYT email better, because of it's format and brevity. However, since I live in Washington, often times the Post's story are more relevant to me, so I read those as well.

Jakob Nielson compared Bush and Kerry's campaign updates with the Washington Post's during the 2004 election. It rated the Post's much higher. I did not receive any of these updates, so I can't speak from personal experience, but it makes sense to me that the Post's would be more user-friendly. While Bush and Kerry would have more to gain with a user-friendly newsletter, the Post is more experienced, having sent out headlines daily for many years now. One thing that the Post is very good at is personalizing what e-mail you can get. For example, in addition to daily headlines I also get a Sports update and a Politics update. I get an Arts update weekly from the NYT. By getting a personalized e-mail, I am much more likely to click a link, follow the story to the main website, and continue exploring the newspaper online once I'm there.

I would assume clicking on a link and arriving at the main campaign website would be a main goal of an e-mail newsletter. Therefore I suggest the campaigns take a better look at what newspapers are doing right and capitalize on that the next time around.