Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Manchester City Council

manchester.gov.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 234 posts

Re: Manchester City Council

#161

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

> 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 work fine if you simply reverse the order here: think carefully about how you want the site to look and work, then look to see if there is a template that is reasonably close. If there is, it's a huge savings in cost and time--even if you have to alter the template a bit. Graphic design and front-end coding are expensive by the hour.

Re: Manchester City Council

#162

Post by jstrate »

I'd prefer most government sites not designed at all, rather apis. And for whatever sites actually needed user input, etc just a header and form tag will suffice. I'm also in the minority which finds most modern web design intrusive. I want to use the service, not look at your art project.

Re: Manchester City Council

#163

Post by gverri »

The amount of hate against design work is high in the last days. For every programmer here trying to be a DESIGN CRITIQUE: Do you know that annoying type of intern that thinks he knows more than you about programming even when you have 20 years more experience?

You right now.

242 points means that the Design is a success. So stop being a dick, you're not better than anyone for pointing failures that doesn't exist.

If you really want to critique Design work, at least make sure you understand everything said here: http://ia.net/blog/learning-to-see/

Re: Manchester City Council

#165

Post by mnicole »

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…

> Many are built with great design in mind.

I've gotta disagree simply because a lot of the people posting to ThemeForest are just trying to make a buck on their hobby - so many of those themes look exactly alike; they're not spending significant time thinking about the usability of their designs and just applying trends. TemplateMonster back-in-the-day was more reminiscent of designers with experience creating unique enough templates to be modified/used for multiple types of purposes.

Re: Manchester City Council

#166

Post by smileysteve »

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…

> but the Manchester City Council website looks like a $45 Wordpress theme off of Themeforest

Yes, the only thing better than inexpensive availability would be free and open availability.

Add to it being on wordpress, and this could potentially make future implementations cheap and easy.

Re: Manchester City Council

#167

Post by joeframbach »

gverri wrote: post #163

The amount of hate against design work is high in the last days. For every programmer here trying to be a DESIGN CRITIQUE: Do you know that annoying type of intern that thinks he knows more than you about programming even when you have 20 years more experience? You right now. 242 points means that the Design is a success. So stop being a dick, you're not better than anyone for pointing failures that doesn't exist. If…

> 242 points means that the Design is a success

No, 242 points means that the design critique is a successful conversation engager. I upvoted to give "government sites should give function more importance than form" more visibility.

Re: Manchester City Council

#168

Post by OGC »

dan1234 wrote: post #92
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…

It has been pointed out, in these comments, that the design is quite similar to that of http://www.kashflow.com (though the markup is quite different)

It's quite similar to * a lot * of other sites.

Re: Manchester City Council

#169

Post by hglaser »

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…

What a predictable top comment for a Hacker News thread. :(

A government website showcases a design that is leaps and bounds ahead of any other government site we can think of, and HN's top comment casually dismisses it.

To rewrite something you said: "This is the perfect example of everything wrong with [HN comments]."

I, for one, am floored that someone in city government was able to rise above the bureaucracy and ship something truly useful and delightful for citizens. I would love nothing more than to meet the people involved and buy them a pint. Well done, guys.

Re: Manchester City Council

#170

Post by mkopinsky »

While in general I approve of the policy here of renaming posts to match the title of the page, the change here done by the mods (to simply "Manchester City Council") makes the whole discussion make no sense. (The original title was "How government sites should be designed".)
Post reply on HN