David Posted February 16, 2009 Have you ever felt the need to visit the official website of the city where you live now, or where you grew up? Probably not, but I assure you that it exists, and it's probably a bit lame. This could mean it looks a bit shit, is really outdated, or just really hard to use. I've lived in a few different Californian cities in the past five or so years, so perhaps a brief rundown of those sites is in order to start things off. --- La Habra, California: http://www.ci.la-habra.ca.us At once, this website seems to reveal a problem that is somewhat common among municipal websites. They are absolutely determined to make every goddamn page accessible from the homepage, which isn't necessary if the site is organized logically. They do this through a confusing network of drop-down menus at the top of the page. These menus lead to other fly-out menus, which then can lead to further fly-out menus, and so on, all with no indication of which menu options will lead to a sub-menu. A simple misstep with the mouse will instantly hide the menu, and you'll need to start over. Once you actually visit a subpage, you'll find that the only link back to the homepage is in the footer, rather than the more obvious top corner of the site. Also, it's really ugly. Thankfully, I only lived here for about 8 months. Judgment: --- Fullerton, California: http://www.cityoffullerton.com While slightly more appealing visually, this site also tries to cram every link onto the top-level navigation. Mercifully, they have only gone to one sub-level beyond the initial drop-down, and these are indicated with little arrow graphics. This site is also "available" in Spanish and Korean, but they've chosen to indicate the language options through the use of tiny flags of Spain (wtf) and South Korea, rather than a potentially more helpful text link in each respective language (eg. "en español"). Perhaps that doesn't matter, though, since they merely link to Google-translated versions of the English site. Lame. At least they have the decency to include a prominent "home" link. Judgment: --- Irvine, California: http://www.ci.irvine.ca.us Ha, this site is just gross. "IrvineWeb" retains the multi-level menus from the previous two city sites. However, it adds in an eye-exploding layout, a menacingly-long graphical side menu, and the mysterious and prominent "e-Inform" feature, which links to a sign-up page that lacks any sort of real explanation on just what the hell an e-Inform is. Judgment: --- I also wanted to throw in an example that actually isn't bad. Let me introduce you to Bellingham, Washington, the town where I was born. http://cob.org/ The design is okay, but what I really like they have chosen to eschew any kind of drop-down or fly-out menu system, in favor of organizing their content under four categories at the top. The "services" page links to a well-organized topic list, and drilling down from there reveals another useful tool: Breadcrumb navigation. Judgment: --- So yeah, please post up your city homepages. I am strangely amused by them, and it's a great chance to show off your civic pride, of course. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted February 16, 2009 Oh look, horrible flyouts and a right hand sidebar full of confusing, over-designed typography. I count at least 6 different navs on that front page. In recent years, Nottingham City Council have found it much cheaper to advertise with slogans like "Proud of Nottingham" rather than do things to, you know, make people proud of Nottingham. I expect this will get worse since it was recently revealed that the city council had £40M invested with Landisbank. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Erkki Posted February 16, 2009 Tallin's website has a history of assorted horribleness, but I guess they've toned it down a little. They even have an interactive map, but nowadays just using google maps is better (more responsive), except when I need to find some public transport routes, which is seldom. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LetterT Posted February 16, 2009 Pagosa Springs Meh. Just completely generic and simple. I'm guessing whoever is in charge of the site is doing it on a purely volunteer basis. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted February 17, 2009 Petaluma, CA seems like it was a good intentioned site until someone went and added that events update scroller thing on the front page. Other subpages are also occasionally destroyed by the passage of time. For a city's web page I'd give it a but you can see that unless it gets some love eventually it will slide down the slope into town. "tdown town" I call it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Scrobbs Posted February 17, 2009 My actual hometown site is pretty crap. Shrewsbury, Shropshire although it is fairly easy on the eye. I was about to list all the other places called Shrewsbury that I could find, but I see that Shrewsbury CC have done it for me! Well done them! http://www.shrewsbury.gov.uk/public/leisure/othershrewsburys.htm There was talk of when we were younger mons of making a pilgrimage to all the other Shrewsburies would could find. the thought of a bunch of pissed English yokels roaming around North America visting Shrewsburies always made us laugh. We never had the cash though. Maybe in now we're all working... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nick Posted February 17, 2009 I guess I cover a number of thumbs with Brighton and Hove. The guy at the top is either a skater or a chav stamping on someone's face. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gdf Posted February 17, 2009 (edited) We're too small to merit more than a bland Drupal template. Edited February 17, 2009 by gdf Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Scrobbs Posted February 17, 2009 We're too small to matter more than a bland Drupal template. That looks a bloody cold place to live! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gdf Posted February 17, 2009 That looks a bloody cold place to live! It's ten miles south of Aberdeen and those photos don't represent it at all. However, it is bloody cold most of the time :3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
syntheticgerbil Posted February 17, 2009 http://www.houstontx.gov/ Our menus are long, slow and broken, how quaint. I guess all the money this city makes certainly does not go into good website design. Our municipal court webpages are much worse, ugly and extremely difficult to navigate. I don't want to look at those until my next traffic ticket. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
toblix Posted February 17, 2009 There's a calendar. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
miffy495 Posted February 17, 2009 My place of birth? Actually too small to have a webpage. Here's the nearest town, and where we had to go to find a grocery store: Cobourg, Ontario; a citizen-centered, performance oriented municipality (emphasis theirs.) Click through to the "Town Services" bit to witness the horror. Here's where I live now: Calgary, Alberta. Come for the pictures of snow, stay for the Economy Watch! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gdf Posted February 18, 2009 There's a calendar. The nearby-ish Lillesand has Stavanger pummeled with its incredible animated banner. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
David Posted February 18, 2009 Oof, that Nottingham site is epic. I especially like the mention of it being "The only homepage you'll ever need." Which, of course, is an excellent web philosophy that has only been proven unfeasible for about 11 years or so. Cobourg, Ontario; a citizen-centered, performance oriented municipality (emphasis theirs.) Click through to the "Town Services" bit to witness the horror. Wait, that bird's clearly fleeing the municipality! Perhaps we should run the animation in reverse. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ysbreker Posted February 18, 2009 I guess I cover a number of thumbs with Brighton and Hove.The guy at the top is either a skater or a chav stamping on someone's face. You can say what you want about the images/colours chosen for that site but it actually does quite a few things right. Such as accessibility and the ability to switch from a fixed to a fluid layout. The navigation is also pretty well thought out I think. It's a shame the HTML doesn't validate though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris Posted February 18, 2009 In order of where I lived: San Francisco, California: There are two official sites for this town, where I was born. http://www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/ which has a fittingly pretentious URL, and http://www.sfgov.org/ which looks like a domain squatting site Bronxville, New York: http://www.villageofbronxville.org/ I lived there next. It was old-timey, like the website now is! Temecula, California: http://www.cityoftemecula.org/ "This web site conforms to W3C's "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" When I lived there it was basically a bunch of dirt. I think it is still that, with more strip malls. Del Mar, California: http://www.delmar.ca.us/ Seems pretty clean and decent-looking, with some irritatingly overused fonts. Kind of like the town. Berkeley, California: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ It has that one stupid font that you see all over the city. San Francisco, California Hey I'm back here again! Weird. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted February 19, 2009 Berkeley, California: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ It has that one stupid font that you see all over the city. Haha Arts and Crafts style can suck it!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brkl Posted February 19, 2009 Ugh, you can see that on some storefronts in Glasgow. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nick Posted February 19, 2009 You can say what you want about the images/colours chosen for that site but it actually does quite a few things right. Such as accessibility and the ability to switch from a fixed to a fluid layout. The navigation is also pretty well thought out I think. It's a shame the HTML doesn't validate though. I guess the images are the only thing I can really critisise. I didn't realise the image at the top of the main page was random. I actually thought they'd chosen that very yellow skater as the image of Brighton & Hove. I love this guy though. Recycling makes him so happy! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted February 19, 2009 Recycling makes him so happy! and/or hernia. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
