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Manchester City Council

manchester.gov.uk

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Re: Manchester City Council

#121

Post by ldh »

megablast wrote: post #83
DigitalSea wrote: post #70

I applaud the change and thinking outside of the box, but the Manchester City Council website looks like a $45 Wordpress theme off of Themeforest. The slider appears to offer no value to the site other than taking up a massive amount of room without really justifying its existence. I'm not a designer, I'm a developer and I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind that slider. While I agree that the trendy loo…

Not quite sure what your point is? Government websites are not there to show of designers ability, they should be simple.

I'd argue that almost no sites should exist to show off designers' skills. The trick is taking various (often competing) requirements and producing a site that seems simple.

Re: Manchester City Council

#122

Post by king_jester »

laumars wrote: post #39
blowski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should public services be ugly?

Why do people insist that services which exist purely for quick searching of information have to be design-orientated and pretty? I hear the same arguments about developer sites (eg PHP manual) but frankly I prefer layouts with an emphasis on conveying content rather than watering down that content behind a wall of epic sized fonts, fading effects and huge scrollable areas. There's a time and place for each design ch…

> Why do people insist that services which exist purely for quick searching of information have to be design-orientated and pretty?

Many of the design principles that improve the aesthetics of a site do have a direct correlation in making those sites easier to navigate and use, esp. for folks who already have a hard time navigating web pages or understanding what information is good/bad/desired. This goes for quality and design of icon sets, font selection, color palette, hinting effects for interactive page elements link links, navigation hierarchy, and more.

> There's a time and place for each design choice, but government sites aren't there to look pretty, they're there for reference. And while it's entirely possible to have a such a layout that isn't ugly, in this instance I think the site has gone the other way (form over function) - so I'd sooner see be faced with an ugly site.

It is true some sites go overboard with visual emphasis will not fully considering user experience. That is true for aesthetically pleasing and unpleasing sites. Government sites are no different from any other kind of site - if aesthetic improvements make the UX better, they are appropriate, perhaps even more so for a site that is supposed to be totally accessible to all people affected by government.

Re: Manchester City Council

#124

Post by DanBC »

DigitalSea wrote: post #70

I applaud the change and thinking outside of the box, but the Manchester City Council website looks like a $45 Wordpress theme off of Themeforest. The slider appears to offer no value to the site other than taking up a massive amount of room without really justifying its existence. I'm not a designer, I'm a developer and I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind that slider. While I agree that the trendy loo…

> I'm a developer and I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind that slider.

If you mean the 3 panel graphics then it seems pretty obvious. They want to focus attention on a small number of important things. They can change this slider once a month to give prominence to different things throughout the year.

Re: Manchester City Council

#125

Post by mattacular »

jerguismi wrote: post #11

No. Goverment web sites should be minimal design & content - black text on white background, no extra graphics. I don't want to pay taxes so that these latte-sipping designers can create cool projects.

Yeah, this is definitely the one waste of tax dollars that you should be outraged about.

Re: Manchester City Council

#126

Post by Maascamp »

josefresco wrote: post #114
thegoodlab wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. This seems to be quite the hyperbole. Sure, it might over use some modern design trends, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind. More than anything govt. sites are not friendly, don't organize their content well, and do a horrible job at engaging t…

"Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind." That's the issue with cheap templates. They are designed and built by web people with no connection to your organization. You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like. Templates serve a purpose at the extreme lo…

When you start a Rails or Django project you're using a template. When you use Bootstrap you're using a template. When you use the business model canvass you're using a template. And forget cheap, those templates are free.

People use templates in successful projects all the time. Don't generalize. I'm sure a lot of sites have found success in their niche using themeforest as well.

Re: Manchester City Council

#127

Post by Xylakant »

ldh wrote: post #121
megablast wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure what your point is? Government websites are not there to show of designers ability, they should be simple.

I'd argue that almost no sites should exist to show off designers' skills. The trick is taking various (often competing) requirements and producing a site that seems simple.

I'd argue that being simple and effective to use is a show off of the designers skills. Whenever I bring a designer on a project, I bring her in to structure and lay out all the information and functions that is available on a site, to guide the readers eye to the important function while not forgetting about the nitty gritty details.

I'm always and each time amazed how much of a difference to reading and comprehension a well designed page makes over a jumbled mess. That's what designers are good at and that's the value they bring - not the fancy looking bling* that most people associate with designers.

Re: Manchester City Council

#128

Post by RivieraKid »

laumars wrote: post #105
RivieraKid wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it improves people's lifes. The main purpose of governent is to improve people's lifes. But minimal websites doesn't have to be ugly of course.

You'd have to be pretty shallow to think that aesthetics are the be-all and end-all of improving peoples lives (and particularly in the case of government websites where they're just a tool; people just use them as a means to an end). Usability should be the most important factor of a government website. If it can be pretty and usable, then that's a bonus.

I didn't say that, but pretty is better than ugly in almost every situation, that was the point. Good-looking and usable is better than ugly and usable.

Websites should maximize user experience, i.e. how pleasantly the user feels. Aesthetics and usability contribute to that.

Re: Manchester City Council

#129

Post by ssharp »

thegoodlab wrote: post #82
DigitalSea wrote: post #70

I applaud the change and thinking outside of the box, but the Manchester City Council website looks like a $45 Wordpress theme off of Themeforest. The slider appears to offer no value to the site other than taking up a massive amount of room without really justifying its existence. I'm not a designer, I'm a developer and I am struggling to understand the reasoning behind that slider. While I agree that the trendy loo…

>This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. This seems to be quite the hyperbole. Sure, it might over use some modern design trends, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind. More than anything govt. sites are not friendly, don't organize their content well, and do a horrible job at engaging t…

Great design is significantly more than good/trendy aesthetics.

I don't think UX and IA can be minimized and made generic enough to fit into a one-size-fits-all theme. You still need to be thoughtful in how you design and display information.

Re: Manchester City Council

#130

Post by davidkatz »

josefresco wrote: post #114
thegoodlab wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. This seems to be quite the hyperbole. Sure, it might over use some modern design trends, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind. More than anything govt. sites are not friendly, don't organize their content well, and do a horrible job at engaging t…

"Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind." That's the issue with cheap templates. They are designed and built by web people with no connection to your organization. You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like. Templates serve a purpose at the extreme lo…

Templates are tool. They can be used or abused. Used well, they can save you weeks of work.

There is a lot of convergence in website goals. Blogs aren't that different from each other, portfolios aren't that different from each other. Sure, you'll take on more constraints than building your own from scratch, but you also might be a lot faster, which often outweighs everything.

I've used templates to great effect many a time.

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