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Manchester City Council

manchester.gov.uk

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Re: Manchester City Council

#171

Post by laumars »

RivieraKid wrote: post #128
laumars wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Recreational sites with reference tools. If we were talking about sites like Twitter, then aesthetics are obviously very important. However for productivity tools such as government websites, then usability is far more important as you're not after casual surfers and trying to generate more traffic from them, you're literally just trying to get people to the information they want in the most direct and painless way possible.

Re: Manchester City Council

#173

Post by laumars »

DanBC wrote: post #119
laumars wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Design" means two things. To people like me and you it means "stupid things that prevent me from doing what I want. Things that are only there because someone thinks they look nice" To good designers it means "very carefully made choices that make information easier to find; that make websites easier to use; and that have the added benefit of making things less ugly." I say that a book is often a great example of mi…

This was why I switched to using the terms "aesthetics" and "usability" to make the distinction between the different interpretations of "design" (In fact in the very post you replied to, I hadn't used the term "design" once).

Since The other guy counter-argued using those same terms so I can only assume that our opinions differ.

Re: Manchester City Council

#174

Post by carlesfe »

zwischenzug wrote: post #172

Title: "Manchester City Council" which links to a the website of MCC. Is that supposed to be sufficient to explain why this is on HN?

I think the title was changed; the original one was something like "All institutional webpages should be like this one"

Re: Manchester City Council

#175

Post by mkopinsky »

carlesfe wrote: post #174
zwischenzug wrote: post #172

Title: "Manchester City Council" which links to a the website of MCC. Is that supposed to be sufficient to explain why this is on HN?

I think the title was changed; the original one was something like "All institutional webpages should be like this one"

The original title was "How government sites should be designed".

Re: Manchester City Council

#176

Post by rusew »

laumars wrote: post #49
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.

Totally. One of my pet peeves is people who insist that "good design" has to have an emphasis on being pretty. Design is as much about function as it is form, and in the case of government sites, having easy navigation, accessibility and relevant content is far far more important than being pretty. Sadly, most UK government sites are both ugly and horrible to navigate. Or at least that was the trend until recently, t…

But users who perceive a site to be "pretty" will usually experience it as easier to use than an uglier site, even if the uglier site is easier to use structurally. "Pretty" often translates to "easy," because users trust the design more.

Re: Manchester City Council

#177

Post by larrydavid »

hglaser wrote: post #169
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…

It's a shame you're being downvoted, hopefully constructive feed back will eventually bubble to the top. There was a similar submission yesterday where this occurred.

Clearly there are a group of elite web designers, UI and UX specialists that parade this site, who, unsurprisingly, have empty profiles. How else are we supposed to see their portfolio of exceptional work so we know what to aspire to?

Re: Manchester City Council

#178

Post by smcl »

arethuza wrote: post #21
jibbist wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike the archaic/gothic use of 'V' rather than 'U' - it looks pretentious and always makes me read it twice before remembering the usage.

That's not really the fault of the website - as far as I know it's part of the brand for Edinburgh Council.

Correct this branding is all over Edinburgh, perhaps to hark back to some ancient celtic roots. I'm not a fan either.

Re: Manchester City Council

#179

Post by laumars »

king_jester wrote: post #122
laumars wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Government sites are no different from any other kind of site

I beg to differ. I think government sites (as well as other reference material like programming manuals) are about getting visitors to their requested information as quickly and painlessly as possible. The user experience isn't from browsing the site, it's purely on whether the visitor found the piece of information or not. Where as recreational sites are about keeping visitors on the page for longer. ie encouraging them to browse around on related pages and re-visit the site again - preferably frequently. For that to work, having a prettier site is of more importance (note that I'm not saying more important than usability, just that aesthetics is of more importance on those types of sites than on reference sites).

It's like sports cars vs delivery trucks. The former needs to be prettier as it's a luxury item and few people would buy an ugly luxury item. So sometimes you'll see the design dictated a little by aesthetics (eg the way the doors open). The latter is bought to serve a specific purpose, so if it's not functional then people wouldn't buy it. This means that delivery trucks generally aren't as aesthetically pleasing but they don't need to be.

To expand on my example, when you described how form and function work beautifully together is a little like Eddie Stobart trucks, they've laid the function down first and then worked out how to make it feel a great deal more special by emphasising the functional attributes of the truck. And as much as I agree with you that examples like that in web design is fantastic, it's a very hard thing to judge. Sadly most people don't pull it off.

Re: Manchester City Council

#180

Post by droopyEyelids »

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 hope you're making an ironic point about what passes as insightful here on news.ycombinator. Otherwise your head is so far up your ass it's starting to come out your mouth.
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