INTERACTIVITY
On the home page there’s a simple menu above the site title, with labels that repeat the theme in a rhymed sequence: Home, Dies, Lies, Thrives, Act, Contact. The rhyming makes it memorable. The color and position signal that the words are links. This is basic, but it’s amazing how few sites do the job so simply and clearly, favoring fussy tabs and colored buttons instead of using space and contrast to highlight the menu.

Most of us understand that the most important links are in the body of the home page, which makes the orange call to action at the bottom the most obvious place to start: “What YOU Can Do.” This brings you straight to the Act segment—where activists want to go, appropriately enough. Once you’re in the content areas you get two kinds of information: links to relevant sites in one half, and news stories in the other. Each segment begins with an overview page of short blurbs on deeper stories you can access by clicking on either a simple list above the text or the subtitles for the blurbs. Both are orange to signal that they’re links. Again, this is basic. But once you click through, the design offers additional interactivity that is stunning in its simplicity and power.

Every statement in the text is backed up by linking key words to published sources. As you read, you notice underlined words. “The notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted ‘best info fast.’” When you roll over the word quote, a yellow field pops up to give the source. Click, and it takes you to the source, which might be CBS, a senator’s website, CNN, a think tank, the Pentagon, or MoveOn.org. It’s an exhaustive index.

Some of the links—actually, quite a few—don’t work. It seems that sources are going offline. At least you know that there was a source. You can decide for yourself whether you trust it, and you can search the archives if you want details.

PROPAGANDA BY DESIGN
Overall, the site is honest about its agenda. For instance, in the Act segment, there’s a link to Props for Propaganda. If what you’d already seen hadn’t told you this yet, you now know what you’re looking at: self-avowed propaganda. In most cases, the propaganda we see is not self-avowed. Commercials, brand communications, this site, the USMC recruiting site—all spin the content to put their sponsors in the best possible light. That’s our job. That also makes designers a lot like lawyers: We build cases for our clients by being selective about the facts we present, and the way we present them. Let’s look at the ways design makes propaganda more powerful.

The black-and-white, positive/negative photography makes Bush and his cohorts look spooky, and visually suggests that they are not who they say they are. The only color photos are in the Act segment, where the subjects are antiwar demonstrators. These are the only smiling faces on the site, the only active figures, and many of them are carrying slogans and posters from this site. Good identification tactics for the brand.

On the overview page for the Dies segment, there’s a link to a short Flash movie, itself a masterful piece of propaganda. Over a slow, beautifully orchestrated version of the national anthem, it presents simple statistics on abuses perpetrated against soldiers by their commanders. Slowly, a grainy black-and-white image resolves from a few dots to a fully realized image of veterans in the field, then fades to a picture of a flag-draped coffin. The flag transforms to full color against the black-and-white ground. Then the site title reasserts itself as the music dies down. It’s quiet. It’s respectful.It’s very moving.

Further down this very long, scrolling page is a positive/negative photo of a soldier, screaming. Below it, there’s a poem titled Dulce et Decorum Est—that’s Latin for “It is Sweet and Righteous.” To die for your country, that is. That’s powerful.

But will any of this convert conservatives? Probably not.

THE ECHO CHAMBER
Pundits are saying that the web has become an “echo chamber.” People search for things they know they want, for sites that echo their own views. This site is a perfect example—to find it, you have to be in the liberal loop.

When I Googled “Iraq war,” although plenty of antiwar sites came up, this one didn’t. “Anti-Bush sites” didn’t pull it up, either. I had to enter “who.dies Bush.lies” to find it again on Google. In fact, I only found it in the first place by clicking through long lists of recommended sites on other “liberal websites.” And even if by some freak of fate a committed conservative did stumble upon this, he or she would probably reject it on sight, and move on.

Maybe the mass-customization trend that the web has made possible, the ability to get exactly what you want when you want it—is turning us into a nation that’s black versus white, you’re wrong and I’m right. Maybe we should all start looking for information that does not support our views, and challenge ourselves to look at the world from time to time in shades of gray.