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Manchester City Council

manchester.gov.uk

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Re: Manchester City Council

#51

Post by vilius »

Encouraging change! Typically before entering a any .gov site something like this goes in my head:

"I'm about to enter a boring website that makes getting to a point super challenging unless you read tons of word documents."

On entering manchester.gov.uk

"Oh look at this! They did a recent update to their design. It feels fresh and trendy. Maybe they actually care. Maybe they were able to update their information architecture as well! There is hope that I won't have to spend an hour reading a bunch of text."

The majority of government websites are very apathetic and poorly implemented. I am very happy to see that this is starting to change!

Re: Manchester City Council

#52

Post by timrogers »

For me at least, http://gov.uk is a lot better - it's far more minimal and puts the information first, whereas I can't help but feel that this Manchester City Council site is more about the sexy design that it is about usability and actually giving you the information you want.

Re: Manchester City Council

#53

Post by diroussel »

dan1234 wrote: post #28

I think I actually prefer http://www.gateshead.gov.uk , which is a lot less "in your face". If I go to a .gov.uk site it's because a need a specific piece of information, I don't need the design getting in the way.

I much prefer the manchester one. They both use icons, which is nice and helps the eye scan the page. But they icons are nicer and share a consistent style.

And the look of the manchester one of more balenced, whereas the gateshead one is nice and clean, but doesn't have any beauty about it.

Re: Manchester City Council

#54

Post by blowski »

nwh wrote: post #22
switch007 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be if it's cheaper (while still meeting the goals etc).

What correlation is there between expensive design and good design? I've seen projects that haven't cost more than a few hundred dollars and still look absolutely stunning. I've also seen projects developed this year that look like they have been dragged from the 90s, yet cost millions in today's money.

A lot of the time the design probably was sketched out in the 90s, and it's taken until this year to reach the development phase.

Re: Manchester City Council

#55

Post by telepoiss »

I'm pretty happy with our government's website. The first few versions where a complete data overload and looked liked they were made in MS Excel. Now its pretty fresh and well structured in my opinion. link: www.eesti.ee

Re: Manchester City Council

#56

Post by harshreality »

ohwp wrote: post #12

In The Netherlands these two sites score very high every year: http://www.capelleaandenijssel.nl/ http://cms.dordrecht.nl/ They contain a lot more useful information above the fold than the linked one. Good design involves a lot more than eye candy.

How do you find anything on those two pages without first mentally parsing the layouts? On the first link, the search bar is in the middle of the damned page, even though the site seems designed around search (meaningful static nav is confined to one element, the Information mouseover at the top)!

By comparison, the manchester site is dead simple, and search is at the top corner where it should be. That style of design reduces content areas (with a corresponding boost to element/object/image size, since there's less stuff competing for the space). Call it eye candy, but it's a lot easier to use for people who aren't used to visually parsing complex page designs.

My problem with the manchester site is the poor use of vertical space, and some of the icon choices, not the basic design style.

Re: Manchester City Council

#57

Post by nnq »

UX fail: Big useless slider/carouse with the slide captions obscured under the huge pics, way under the fold... and to prevent this big fat carousel from being too low on the page (...but it still is), useful services links are one click away under that 'other services' button, instead of being able to just scroll to them!

...it's amazing how many people totally miss the point of sliders/carousels/slideshows: to sell profitable products or showcase important site content! if you use them, put them at the page top and have relevant captions with links that people actually click.

Re: Manchester City Council

#58

Post by nnq »

dan1234 wrote: post #28

I think I actually prefer http://www.gateshead.gov.uk , which is a lot less "in your face". If I go to a .gov.uk site it's because a need a specific piece of information, I don't need the design getting in the way.

indeed, http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/ is the properly done version of this. it's as if a narcissistic graphic designer took this site, wiped his/her ass on it and turned it into http://www.manchester.gov.uk/...

Re: Manchester City Council

#60

Post by adventureloop »

smcl wrote: post #7

I'm sure everyone else is aware of how local government websites look in their own parts of the world - but for a similar-sized UK city Edinburgh City Council's website is a good (i.e. bad) example for comparison: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk

Complain all you want, but http://www.aberdeen.gov.uk doesn't exist at all. For the third city in Scotland I find that really embarrassing.
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