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Milwaukee Police News

milwaukeepolicenews.com

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Re: Milwaukee Police News

#2

Post by andrewguenther »

As cool and interesting as it is, as a citizen, the information I am actually interested in is all the way down at the bottom. Even then, if what you're looking for isn't in the FAQ, you have to open a PDF just to see more links (what?). There isn't even a phone number listed for non-emergency calls.

Very nice page, but a poor website

Re: Milwaukee Police News

#3

Post by saraid216 »

I... appreciate that they're using modern technologies. That's awesome. I also really like that they're topically focusing what they want to present. That's also awesome.

But that was a painful experience to go through, and it felt like my browser was crying. To me, in terms of UX, this is pretty much one step short of the blink tag. It's glitz for the sake of glitz, to the detriment of utility.

Re: Milwaukee Police News

#4

Post by patdennis »

It's almost impossible to scroll using the trackpad on my MBP.

I think it's the inertial scrolling that causes problems... the slightest touch sends it down three or four pages.

Re: Milwaukee Police News

#5

Post by chrsstrm »

Great photos, but scrolling with my magic mouse got me angry pretty quick when I couldn't read anything even near the edge of the top or bottom or each section without an over-scroll happening.

Re: Milwaukee Police News

#7

Post by slapshot »

Kudos for breaking the mold and I love the design from a "this is new and fun" perspective, but I completely disagree from a functional perspective. It looks really neat (if a little over-testosteroned), but if I'm visiting the police's web page then I might want to do one of the following (there are plenty more, these are just an example):

  - Find the non-emergency number for the police;
  - Report a crime;
  - Find my car that has been towed;
  - Pay a fine, citation, traffic ticket, etc;
  - Find the nearest police station (to get fingerprints, etc);
  - Apply for a job;
  - View a map or statistics about crime.
To do any of those, I have to start at the picture of cops, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page (past lots of press releases), click on "about" and then start navigating. Or notice the tiny box on the far right side of the screen, click "about" (why click "about" if I want to find my car? I dunno), then start navigating. Some of these links are also in a PDF [1] just in case I haven't gotten my "Acrobat Reader wants to update itself" message for the day.

I'd say this is at least 25% less functional than some other (probably much cheaper) very plain sites I've seen for similarly-sized cities. [2]

In other words: if you aren't in the business of user experience, think twice before presenting a novel user experience. The business of police should be policing, not looking cool online. There is a zero chance that a technophobe would be likely to solve their problems using this site, thus increasing the burden on (already depleted) staff at stations.

[1] http://www.milwaukeepolicenews.com/wp-content/themes/milwauk...

[2] E.g., http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/police/

Re: Milwaukee Police News

#10

Post by tstegart »

slapshot wrote: post #7

Kudos for breaking the mold and I love the design from a "this is new and fun" perspective, but I completely disagree from a functional perspective. It looks really neat (if a little over-testosteroned), but if I'm visiting the police's web page then I might want to do one of the following (there are plenty more, these are just an example): - Find the non-emergency number for the police; - Report a crime; - Find my c…

This is just their news website to promote themselves so people don't think they're doing a crappy job. Their regular website still exists and it just as boring and functional as ever: http://city.milwaukee.gov/police
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