Shashi Tharoor
In Brand Information Online Social
Shashi Tharoor was elected as a Member of India’s Parliament for the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala in May 2009. He currently also serves as the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs. Previously, Tharoor served as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information. In 2006, he was nominated by India to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. Secretary-General, a position that ultimately went to Ban Ki-moon of South Korea. Tharoor is also a humanitarian and an accomplished writer.
Shashi Tharoor had two websites: his personal website, which included interviews, his biography and information on his books; and the other, a campaign site, which played a pivotal role in his victory in the election. With his new political responsibilities, it became evident that a new portal was needed to combine the two ponderous sites into one that would fulfill his campaign promises.
The new website would offer simple access to information and connection with Shashi Tharoor and his office. A key function would be to promote open and transparent governance and to help people seeking to address their concerns. Therefore, it was imperative that the website be simple to navigate to encourage participation and to create an open communication channel between Shashi Tharoor and the people. We were approached to create a website that would have good information architecture to ensure transparency and accessibility to information and services that were promised.
Working with the initiatives, we took information from the previous sites and reorganized them for clarity and accessibility. Each essential component on the homepage is simply but elegantly displayed.
India has a large readership population. Even with all its technology advances, print-based tabloid style is still very popular. The layout of the website alludes to the tabloid style, and by using the principles of Web 2.0, it successfully straddles high technology and an enjoyable user experience. Readers are able to scan the information quickly, and can also read with greater ease as the font type and larger font size were carefully chosen for better readability. We also adopted a muted color palette, besides a reflection of Tharoor’s humble and personable demeanor, provides yet another pleasant, eye-friendly experience. A Twitter feed is prominently featured to encourage open communication and to function as a platform for people to voice their concerns. As promised, the channel to connect with Tharoor and his staff is visible and readily accessible 24/7/365. The combined effect communicates Tharoor’s integrity and sincerity in connecting and working with the people of India.
