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 look of the site is better than most Government sites, it tries too hard to the point the change and potential this site could have had is gone. The reason Government websites are usually ugly is not because Government's are afraid of change or can't justify the cash it's because there are content accessibility guidelines to adhere too. And when you've got to make your content accessible to people with disabilities well your options can be somewhat limited (especially colour use).
This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. Instead of thinking, "What can we NOT add to this site design" designers seem to be thinking, "How many full screen images, rounded corners, parallax effects, CSS animations, Javascript effects and large amounts of custom fonts can we cram into this site?"
I can foresee a lot of issues for people with eyesight problems on this site, aren't Governments supposed to adhere to WCAG rules and a lot more stricter than non-Government websites do? The images don't even have alt tags on them, Web Developer common sense rule #1 — Always put alt tags on images, especially when they're being used as icons in content sections, wow.
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.
I'm afraid HN is getting the way Slashdot went: sarcastic über-negativity on each and every post, often by people with little or no skin in the game and no experience as real developer/entrepreneur. After all, if you have time to post early on a high-traffic site like this, you're probably not very busy building new things. I say this while being fully conscious that I'm exactly one of these time-wasting untalented hacks.
The first few months I was reading HN comments (which wasn't that long ago, just about two years, but feels like ages), I was actually feeling pumped-up and motivated to start my own biz (although I now know I'm pretty hopeless at it). These days, it feels like HN is just full of well-spoken and highly-educated stop energy.
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?
Art/Creative Directors often have some of the worst, if existent at all, portfolios. Execution has nothing to do with having an eye for it.
This layout might look more modern than the 1998 frames we were expecting, but from a usability standpoint, it's still weak. If your average government site has a lefthand sidebar that contains all of the navigation, that in itself is better than making your user move their eyes all over the page, forcing them to click on a button to even see the rest of the options available. On top of that, they don't look like links (they don't even have a hover state), which is frustrating enough for me, but could be entirely too confusing for average users.
Additionally, that large image is useless; the "View more services" should be visible without needing to click into it.
This is a fallacy. If you need to show something to prove or give an opinion or a reason about 2+2=4 then we will have troubles to discuss on anything.
You cannot use argumentum ad hominem to this point. If people has to shown their portfolios or other stuff to prove their skillmanship you're only wasting time and finding on the wrong place to prove your points, since those designs may not apply or be used as a good example to counterattack the main point here.
Unfortunately, the world is so complicated that we can't make an informed decision based on speech/writing alone, and verification of achievements is one of the easiest and most accurate ways to judge credibility.
We should give opinions based on evidence, proven evidence. The rest are just, personal viewpoints who doesn't care what you prove. I try always to avoid these discussions, but sometimes i feel is a bit unfair to bring up the "show me your X card, sir" to talk about something.
To agree with you I have to agree that this site is "leaps and bounds ahead of any other government site we can think of", and that it is "truly useful and delightful for citizens" over and above previous sites and or designs.
I'm very sorry, but I don't agree with either.
Is that OK with you? Am I allowed to have my own opinion and express it? Am I some sort of idiot because I don't agree? Am I expected to say nothing?
I would say why, but clearly you would find it predictable and all :(
Whole heartedly agree. So dissapointed to see people picking holes in the design, when actually the site's functionality works extremely well and is far ahead of almost any other comparable local authority website.
On a recent story about AngularJS, one of the top comments was someone noting that they think poorly of AngularJS because the website for the project "looks like a Bootstrap site".
To which I say: Who gives a shit.
I say the same here. The site looks fantastic, and I would love if my local municipality had something as clean and functional, whether or not it looks like a wordpress theme.
Too many want to be world weary. They want to announce that they can see under the covers and thus are above it. I don't get it.
I'd agree with you on the slider not being a good use of space. But I'd argue that it does get some other things right which a lot of uk government sites fail on.
In particular the simple presentation of the primary services people access with the option to expand out for other less frequently used ones. This is a huge improvement on, for example http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/home.htm
I have to use that site quite regularly and pretty much the only way to get anything is googling site:www.lambeth.gov.uk with the service you're looking for.
Agree accessibility could be an issue although looking at the fairly prominent accessibility section at the top of the site, it does look like they've at least considered it. I don't know enough about accessibility to evaluate whether what they've done is sufficient.
Perhaps holding this up as how they "should" be designed is a step too far but to me it looks like a step in the right direction.
Giving it a cursory look [1] it seems they score pretty ok on accessibility:
They use a proper content structure with appropriate headline levels, buttons are large enough for people that can't use a mouse properly. The contrast in the default color scheme looks fine and they provide a high-contrast color scheme. They even offer to switch the font to accomodate dyslexics, but fail to include a dyslexic font[2]. The layout falls apart a little if you use the high contrast scheme with large letter-spacing and comic sans, but it still includes all functions, so that's forgiven.
The fact they don't provide alt-tags for all images is totally fine: The images are just visual add-ons to the links that are provided directly underneath the images, so any screen reader will pick up the links and not the images. Quite to the contrary, providing empty alt-tags as they do will hide the images from screen reader and will remove mental clutter. The "always add alt-tags" mantra is - as so many matras in the web design world - wrong when taken at face value.
Forms are designed well with proper placeholders and labels.
Now, there's much more to accessibility than this - for example the writing style and text complexity, but it's obvious they have given accessibility more than a passing thought and taken it into consideration. One thing is certain however: Accessibility is not a roadblock for good design.
[1] Please note that this is only the 10-minute-tick-the-most-important-boxes check :)
[2] maybe for legal reasons, including dyslexic fonts is a legal nightmare with two warring factions
Thanks for posting this - I'm aware of that, but wanted to note that they don't offer a "real" dyslexic font. I should have been more clear about that.
Yes. I haven't been following the outcome, so that might be resolved but my latest info bit is that it's currently a minefield. Comic Sans is a viable alternative for most use cases though.
>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 their users. I would say this site does all of three, making it at least a decently designed and well built site.
"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 low end of the market but soon every organization should graduate to a process that does not begin with a template.
Would you use a template as the basis for your entire software project? Would you use a template for your business plan? Certainly there's a case to be made for both, but neither is ideal for anyone seeking success.
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.
If you want to compare apples with apples then it would be better to compare Bootstrap or Rails with some of the "framework" themes (like Genesis) that exist for platforms like WordPress. They stop short of design and mostly provide the designer and developer with a common language.
A complete theme usually has a lot more than just tools, conventions and code examples. It's a complete design, and content implementation, all you have to do is stick in your logo and copy and you're done. Not exactly the same process as using a framework.
Although I also dislike frameworks (Bootstrap high on that list) for the same reasons (shoehorning is encouraged) I don't think it's an appropriate comparison.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
couldn't disagree more. Underneath the "frosting" of the design surface of this site is one of the best user experiences I've had on a government website in a long long time. As someone who is in the middle of building out a large government site at the moment I'm keenly aware of how hard it must have been to bring the Manchester council team along with their design and ux decisions. For me this is the real triumph of this site.
I agree. It is easy to complain about how boostrappy or wordpress like the theme is, but it is immaterial the source of the design inspiration. The most import thing is, that it works and is functional. Try going to the birmingham.gov.uk or london.gov.uk or any of the boroughs in London and see how much of an improvement this approach actually is.
I just started as a BA at Westminster, currently working on customer journeys and user stories, redesigned website and content to follow early next year....watch this space...!
I think you over reacted and misjudged a lot on this and I completely disagree with you.
They've used blue on links, clearly the best color for color disability and the contrast is really nice on the homepage and other sections. I do not foresee any kind of eyesight problems.
The rest of the stuff you mention as a catastrophe are really just minor problems. They can be solved without problems. Most of the images aren't objects on the document, they're just background images on span elements, so no trauma for the disabled.
Buttons, if rounded, better studies has shown, and this website is not using parallax, so what's the point of attacking designers who clearly didn't abused of the latests and hottest webdesign techniques.
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.
Isn't that website simple? Jesus, check this one http://www.bcn.cat/ is from Barcelona city, you will understand when something was designed simple and when was made like the rest of the 99%.
That website is simpler than the rest, tell me how you will reduce the noise.
> 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.
> Web Developer common sense rule #1 — Always put alt tags on images, especially when they're being used as icons in content sections, wow.
Actually, no. The icons are correctly labeled with text and many of the images are CSS background images (which can't have ALT text anyway.) In their usage, a screen reader would sound out the text on screen, providing a user with enough information to make a browsing decision.
Even if the images were inline rather than applied in the background, you need to use ALT decisively. ALT text that repeats what is already a link label can be more redundant than helpful.
>>This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. Instead of thinking, "What can we NOT add to this site design" designers seem to be thinking, "How many full screen images, rounded corners, parallax effects, CSS animations, Javascript effects and large amounts of custom fonts can we cram into this site?"
I completely agree with this one. I do design and code and it really pisses me off how pages are designed (I design ugly websites, and pretty ones as well, but whoever I design for, it works).
Everything looks like a theme now-days, and oversized as well because it's responsive. Some stuff is just useless and every designer keeps saying ' less is more, less is more ' while designing stuff like this? Less IS more when you know how to use it, when to use it, and what it really means.
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.
If accessibility is the issue, the standard for websites really ought to change.
How? Well, we don't require that stairs be accessible for everyone. We require a ramp or an elevator in addition to the stairs.
Perhaps the standards for web accessibility should change so that websites will have an easily accessible alternative design for those who need it and the standard design for everyone else.
Why don't governments design sites with multiple themes for multiple targets? And speaking of being accessible ... why do their sites have so much small text? No, I think government agencies could make better use of fonts and sizes, at least.
Really though, the chances that tertiary government - like the ones who manage a city - keep a website designer on staff seem low. What would he do the other 360 days of the year? If they want to buy something like that, chances are it has to go out to tender. IT departments in non-IT firms are likely to be predominant busy with dealing with network issues, making computers run far too slowly, and issuing new mice and keyboards.
Heck, their CMS is certainly government procurement service. They advertise the fact on their site:
The real question is why a bunch of councils don't stick their money together and lock a bunch of programmers up in a basement to make cool tools for them.... That would seem the obvious thing to do - what are the odds that your council has a demand that no other council has?
Would you want to be the person working for that organisation?
Working for one council means working for a committee, working for multiple is probably working for a committee of committees.
Decentralisation and out-sourcing are central words for the public society. The idea of bringing this in-house and sharing between other councils is probably a couple of pay-grades above the person on the comms team who is in charge of the website. The person in charge of the website may not even be a "technical" person and have time to think of all the cool possibilities.
MySociety make fixmystreet for councils (the open source fixmystreet.com but hooked into councils existing systems + extra reporting), I'm sure there are plenty of private companies making these things and selling them.
"The images don't even have alt tags on them, Web Developer common sense rule #1 — Always put alt tags on images"
I think you mean 'alt attribute'. Alternative text is provided via an attribute on an img's tag, not as a tag in its own right.
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, thankfully it seems some of those organisations are starting to re-fit their site.
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.
Interesting point. I hadn't considered that kind of psychological effect but it does seem plausible given the perverse subconscious crap that people perceive (wine tasters listing off red wine flavors when tasting red-died white wine, miracle healing properties of placebo drugs, etc)
Was going to say this. "Of course it's 'in your face', it's Manchester!"
This is where the council paid to erect a London Eye replica in the middle of the bloody town; a city quite proud of featuring the tallest and ugliest hotel in the land, and where the main attractions are a stadium and one of the largest shopping centre in Europe (certainly the tackiest -- think Las Vegas' Bellagio, triple the size, add "paintings" of Wayne Rooney and Winston Churchill). Mancunians are a lovely bunch, but damn don't they half-like being in-your-face.
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.
It feels like the Manchester one is a bit too 'old school' (i.e. maybe started in print) designer lead.
For example, rollover states are either missing, inverting to hard to read colors, or... weird. Who designs buttons without designing and testing rollover states?
I see you're new here. "I agree" is a contentless response that adds nothing to the topic at hand. Feel free to post if you have something interesting to say, but "+1" is discouraged here.
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.
Holy hell, I've been going through accountants and the HMRC and things for years and nobody has been able to answer me and tell me what this page told me in two clicks!
Now this is what a government site should be. Sterile, cold, lightweight, and functional. Give me as many of the most common links as you can on the front page and make it easy to find the less common stuff. Period.
I don't mind a bit of design, as long as the design is fully functional for EVERYONE that needs to use it.
Yes, that means people using older browsers/machines, users with restricted vision, anyone that requires access to a council website, or requires information about council services. On IE7, this website works, but it takes a very long time to load, probably because the home page is 1MB, with just under 950k of this being images, and this isn't acceptable. The average user couldn't care less if the site looks nice, or is aesthetically pleasing, or if they are using a browser that StatCounter claim is at 1% worldwide. They want their information.
I picked up a council project a few years ago, where an agency had built a nice looking website. However, it had not been tested using screen readers or tested using a focus group. After a few months they had received complaints about users using screen readers not being able to read the pages regarding council services for visually-impaired people.
Yes, but if the site is designed poorly then the user will spend as much time trying to figure out how to navigate around it than they would waiting for this modern version to download. I'm not saying the new one is easier to use, but you get my point.
A basic site doesn't have to be designed poorly. My opposition is against design for the sake of designing, and in turn code for code's sake. A page doesn't always need to be loaded to the brim with JavaScript, and a home page doesn't always need a slider.
A good designer will create the bare minimum for a functional site, and a good developer will use the best tools for the job, instead of the tools that everyone else uses.
Yes, the title changing has gotten seriously out of hand lately. I don't get it either, it's not like the original title was confusing (unlike the new title).
I don't know that any of them will actually respond … a number of people have been complaining about this, and I can't recall a time when they've responded at all, let alone with anything reasoned, or reasonable. But it's ridiculous.
The best word I have for it is that it feels paternalistic. I think there are many occasions where HN commenters write dumb things and reflect on themselves poorly. And in many cases, the original title of the linked page is fine. But people writing blog posts (or just titling demo pages or other sites, like the one linked here) aren't writing their titles with the intent that their title will give context to the readers of a random forum. It's bizarre that HN mods change the titles, and I really wish they would stop.
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.
You are conflating minimal and cheap. A good minimal design takes the same sort of person (who may or may not enjoy milky coffee) as a good design of any other aesthetic.
You make an assumption that super simple website is the optimal balance between quality and price. I think that it's wrong. First, minimalistic websites with good UX are not significantly cheaper. And second, if the webstite has a lot of visitors, it makes sense to pay lot of money for even small improvements of the UX.
I pay taxes and I want government sites that are easy to navigate and efficiently designed. Black text on white background does not meet my requirements. This design - which I bet puts over 50% of user requirements in those eight simple pictures at the top - meets my requirements.
A page full of black text on a white background? Sounds like you're on some kind of ideological trip.
Have you seen the state of some government websites today? Sure they're "minimal" (often not, sometimes they're just plain ugly) but almost always difficult to navigate. You underestimate how difficult it is to organize information-dense government websites. I think people will ultimately get more value out of a well designed site.
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 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.
NB this is coming from a dyslexic who equally hates being presented with walls of text.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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 minimal design. Designers point out that books have hundreds of years of cumulative design - the fonts have been iterated; the layout and the margins and the indents and everything has all had decades of iteration.
I get the feeling that you and parent both agree and are now talking past each other.
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.
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.
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.
Making the website more appealing for non-geeks results in more non-geeks using the website. The website is a more cost-efficient way of servicing non-geek citizens.
So spending money on good design can definitely be worth it. Assuming every penny spent on aesthetics is a penny wasted is a developer fallacy.
The cost of designing a page such as this over a minimalist website is so negligible in terms of the amount the government spend and take everyday, that it is simply not necessary to nitpick. This could be just thought of as an experiment in governmental website design. I think sometimes the "people" act like the worst managers that they micro-manages and want to squeeze every penny, while missing the big picture.
What does paying taxes and drinking lattes have to do with building a website? Yes you pay taxes to the government, and yes they're in the process of updating their websites (and largely doing a fantastic job of it), but your taxes don't enter into it. The government allocates a certain amount of money towards the process, and that money gets spent on building new websites. That's it. You don't pay for it directly. Please don't pretend that you are.
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".)
If we're gonna follow the guidelines, then the Boston bombing was entirely off-topic and should have been removed immediately instead of getting thousands of points. The only Boston-related on-topic story was Bruce Schneier's view on it, which is also the reason why the other stories should not have been on HN.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Edit: Well that was a quick downvote. Guess the Boston bombing strikes a nerve. But is it so hard to be objective about it?
It looks lovely. But it's hard to find things. Consequently it's not how a government website should be designed.
Try finding, for example, the cost of a planning application. It's a few clicks away from the home page, which is fine given that it's reasonably logical if you can spot the initial starting point on the homepage ... but the search is poor. For the terms "cost of planning", a link to http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/5865/plann... is hidden at the 6th result in a page of links that's essentially a wall of text. Search results are likely to be a very important part of a large data driven site, so they should be much better.
If you search for "cost of planning application" it's on the first result - in the context of a council website "cost of planning" could mean lots of things (e.g. how much do they spend on managing planning across the entire organisation).
Those icons are confusing. Click expand to see the whole list together. What a mess! Ideally they should be using glyphs with much bolder lines, or if they're really set on using the current ones, place each on a solid white circle. Right now they blend in with the text and seem to add to the overall visual noise.
Scrolling down the page, why the hell am I looking at a gigantic picture of a girl staring back at me? That image would be better placed on an interior decorating portfolio, not a city council website. Ideally the images shouldn't be so large and vague, but if they're set on using it, they should've overlayed the image with its headline in a large white font (currently relegated to the invisible location of below the image)
I have issues with their color scheme too. I think most governmental websites should use white as their dominant color, for clarity's sake. GOV.UK is a website that is worth aspiring towards, not this. Very much not this.
Seriously disagree with your analysis. I have a 24" monitor, and this is one of the few websites that makes excellent use of all that real-estate. I found that the icons are large, relatively clear and straightforward in meaning, making it much easier to hunt for content than if you were to visit the other single-column, text-heavy websites.
I would hold GOV.UK as a site that's too minimalist. A person could be forgiven for thinking the gov.uk domain is still up for sale.
> Those icons are confusing. Click expand to see the whole list together. What a mess! Ideally they should be using glyphs with much bolder lines, or if they're really set on using the current ones, place each on a solid white circle. Right now they blend in with the text and seem to add to the overall visual noise.
I always prefer iconic interfaces as compared to the ones with just text. Try to think of one thing that you would like to find and go to gov.uk and then to manchester.gov.uk. See which one is easier to find
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.
How come this and all .gov.uk sites mentioned in the comments include Google Analytics scripts?
I would imagine that the sharing of the data collected on government websites with 3rd parties be rather strictly regulated. Especially when it's collected as a part of a tracking infrastructure that spans beyond said sites.
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.
"... search is at the top corner where it should be."
Did you ever visit the Google homepage? Why should search be at the top corner?
I don't know if you understand Dutch but since text is part of the interface maybe this is why you are having issues with the design?
"My problem with the manchester site is the poor use of vertical space, not the basic design style."
Well I was talking about exactly this. The Manchester site may look nice but it is lacking overview. Design is more than looks. It is also about text, interaction and so on.
The search box goes in a top corner normally because putting it elsewhere disrupts the content layout or takes unnecessarily long to find. If there's no other content, the search box can go anywhere.
I use google chrome which translates the page well enough for me to understand.
There are too many visually distinct sections on those Dutch websites for someone who isn't familiar with the site to find anything quickly. There are non-tech-savvy folks for whom anything more complex than the manchester site, or Google's front page search box, is too complex for them to deal with. They wouldn't be able to visually scan the Dutch pages for what they want. Whether it's lack of technical familiarity, lack of attention span, or something else, I don't know. Lots of text divided up into arbitrary sections simply doesn't work well for them.
How is the manchester site lacking an overview? It has four major categories near the top, another tier of categories which expands into 20 categories with one click, and if that doesn't find what you're looking for, or you're lazy, you can type what you want into the conveniently located search box.
I agree that the manchester site be improved (most of the stuff at the bottom should be eliminated or turned into links in the top bar), but I think it's closer to ideal than the two sites you linked are.
The benefits of keeping as much info above the fold has been debunked time and time again. These two sites you linked are unnecessarily cluttered and take time for the user to absorb. They look like they were designed in 2002.
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!
Good call, I was also going to mention this until I saw your comment.
It appears there are many UK city sites that are trying to implement these principles. Given that the principles include accessibility guidelines [0] and transparency of intent [1], I'd prefer to see more city sites designed this way. (That is if the sites in question faithfully implement the design principles)
Regarding the site OP linked, even if a little glossy, it's certainly not a disaster of usability. In fact, I tend to believe in the aesthetic-usability effect [2] in the case of not-so-design-savvy users, the added sheen might actually motivate them to use the city portal more often.
I personally think the redesigned site for my county (Wake County, NC) is far, far superior. It looks nice -- not quite as "modern startup" as the Manchester site -- but is so much easier to use.
I agree completely, on both counts. I think I've used it for the few things I use it for, enough times to have just memorized what's where. It's definitely a huge improvement over the old site, regardless!
I'm going to go against the HN grain and say that it's great. Frequent complaints I hear about local authority websites boil down to:
1. Too much top-level navigation - choice is confusing.
2. No idea which information is in which section.
This one gets you to (what they believe to be) the most-commonly requested issues instantly, and gives you a quick idea of what you can find in each section. This is the perfect place for search results suggestions too. Remember, most visitors to these sites are not going to be frequent users - they won't have the time or inclination to learn a more complex system.
I don't think it's perfect, but I think it's a great idea that just needs a bit of extra polish.
The #1 priority of government websites should be accessibility, not looking cool with whatever garbage unusable web trends are popular du jour and supported by only a handful of desktop browsers running on modern hardware.
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.
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.
The only reason that this has been driven up to the top of HN is because of its title. If it had been titled "A Nicely Designed Government Site", it would have gone nowhere.
As for the site, I can't see how the navigation would have me pulling out any fewer hairs than any other government site, but it is very large, multicolored and slidey, so if I were putting together an iPad commercial I might use it in a couple of shots.
I'm sure it all depends on what info you're after. But the site here have the typical info that people are after regarding the gouvernment on the front page. Most of the links there are related to the reasons we have government at all.
That's not how most government sites are structured in my experience, though I'm not from the UK.
Yup. Click on "Council Tax" on the homepage... then "Can't find it? Other council tax services"... then "See your council tax band" (Rounded red button)
Maybe you think "very easily", but I searched around for 10 minutes unable to find the numerical information required. I had concluded it didn't exist in tabulated form, so thanks for confirming I was wrong - although I'm still not sure if this is accessible via natural links.
What I find bad about that - is that I know my way around a website, and I couldn't find the required information. I found it with ease on other council website suggested in the comments (Lambeth, Gateshead, Birmingham: all 2-3 links deep)
If we want people to look for information on the web rather than blocking council call centres: this website is not the right way.
I feel like it's a step improvement, and will help people use the site.
However, what I'd have really liked to see is machine readable minutes of the council.
This is something that's a bit of a bug bear having ended up setting up a project awhile back to try and bring-out the minutes etc of the council meetings. We called it MCC Work For You: https://code.google.com/p/mcc-work-for-you/
Sadly within the confines of a hackday we couldn't get as much progress as we'd have liked.
However, as a proof of concept it was useful, and did inspire @CountCulture to go forward with his site: http://openlylocal.com/
I'd really like to see progress in this area, and the encouragement of councils to make progress with making the minutes readable. Definitely helpful for investigative journalists, as well exposing the good work of councillors.
I wonder if there's a plan somewhere for this? I couldn't find it on the site.....
I am becoming more and more a fan of the Jeckyll trend for front-facing web sites for government. I believe Hawaii.gov just rolled out their new site and it looks fantastic.
The Manchester city page is certainly better than a number of government sites I've seen in the past, (kudos) but might benefit from a bit better economy of screen real estate.
I personally don't like this. 1) I don't like this style even when web startups do it... too much vertical scrolling, empty space, giant images, and icons; and 2) it just looks weird for a serious site to look like a web startup.
This is a modern government website design I like better: http://www.kk.dk
I'm the front end technical lead for a major department in a top 10 U.S. State (that's all I can say). As much as I love the way that certain public sector entities are embracing modern design principles for their sites, there is a balance to be struck.
Form always follows function when it comes to design, and when it comes to government, function requires that the site is as accessible as possible.
Color selection, JavaScript use, and extended backwards compatibility with older browsers are among the the many considerations one has to take into account for the elderly, the impaired, and those who simply don't have access to modern browsers. That being said, it's definitely possible to have stunning design with these things taken into account, we just can't implement every bell and whistle we're used to.
I love some of the new gov sites. Yes, there are some problems, but compared to the god-awful mess we had before they're amazing.
It's important to have good machines for development. But I wonder how many people have terrible machines for testing.
As for local government: Here's an example. Gloucestershire (http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/resident) - imagine you want to report a child at risk. The search gives you useful results, but also sends you to the Safeguarding children website. (http://www.gscb.org.uk/)
The Gloucestershire site is good[1] and the GSCB site is terrible.
[1] for some values of good, including 'you should have seen it a few years ago'.
Looks really nice, but at first I thought I needed to scroll down to see the other services instead of clicking the button first. After clicking, it was clear to me that this obviously is a button. But this wasn't my understanding when I saw the page at first. Anybody else had the same issue?
When I go to a service, for example "Roads, parking & transport" and I go to the bottom of the page there is a section called "Policies, statements & resources". Now I need to click it in order to see the items, why not have it in this state by default? I've checked some of the other pages and there never really are a lot of links underneath there anyway, so this won't make the pages a lot longer.
The site tries too hard to be eye-catching, and like other commenters have already stated, looks like the latest, trendiest WordPress theme.
Gov't sites should maybe be the opposite of this: as little art as possible and squeaky clean navigation getting you to your desired municipal information as possible so you can do what you came to do then get on with your day.
Anything else is _distracting_.
The designer and developers behind this are talented, of course, and to sell a redesign often involves these sort of hero shots and contemporary flourishes. But a bigger accomplishment would have been to pitch and win a design that is minimally invasive and efficient.
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
I totally love that there is a link that says "Report dumped Rubbish" on that site! That is fantastic. I am not sure if the preteen girl was thinking about adoption or the adoptee, but otherwise I think the site is great.
I think this takes mobile first a bit too far. On my desktop with a high resolution this feels a bit odd. That said, it's really refreshing to see government sites properly designed and UX and mobile friendly.
Looking past the knee-jerk reaction to "this design looks expensive", would love to see how the Manchester Council site performs from a service design perspective. How do local residents use the site? Can they find what they need quickly and easily, from both a desktop and a mobile?
I'm betting yes, and the cost saved (in terms of time, frustration and maybe money) over a poorly designed yet inexpensive-looking site will be worthwhile.
Side note: Would love to see a blog post about the thought behind the design, either from the design agency or the web manager at Manchester...
They look very similar but the markup is quite different (KashFlow is a Wordpress blog, Manchester is "Jadu CMS") so I don't think they just used a template unless they went back to the original PSDs.
Government websites need to start with the user.
What's the point of showing all the information if it's not relevant ?
What's the point of showing me permits that only apply to residents, if they don't apply to a business owner ?
What's the point of showing me tax information if I'm a tourist ?
They shouldn't make you look at all that.
They should make it easy.
3 buttons to start with : resident, tourist, business.
Add 3 photo to make it attractive and a few language choices.
On my screen size and browser chrome, the little girl's eyes are just above the bottom of the browser window. With the rest of the picture out of focus, it looks positively creepy.
Since this is a UK Government site, I think the Equality Act 2010 requires WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. As difficult as WCAG is, and I've yet to see a fully-passed implementation, the lack of no-JavaScript support probably means they haven't met the accessibility mark. All that aside, I actually like the design, seems they got their IA in order, with a good prioritisation of content.
People in the UK are fine with such images. Soviet imagery (usually fake cyrillic with reversed capital Rs) makes its way into advertisements and such pretty often.
Most youth will only be vaguely aware of the origins of that style of imagery.
It is a bit weird, now that I think about it. It's a bit like Korean bars being "Hitler themed".
It would have been a lot more weird if they were showcasing actual Manchester City Council workers.
EDIT: Here's a great book about soviet political posters. I won an award at school, and I chose this book. It was handed to me by, I think, Baroness Warnock. I can't remember what she said, but it was kind and funny.
If that image was based on a picture of a Soviet leader then I do think it would be odd.
However, as its clearly based on an image of the Soviet people then I don't associate anything negative or inappropriate with it. After all, a lot of people in the UK still remember that it was mainly the Soviets who defeated the Nazis - resulting in incredible suffering and hardship for the people there.
I know the students who put it together probably thought it was cute, but the "Join the Apprentice Revolution!" photo[1] strikes me as rather tasteless, given the ideology and events that inspired it.
In Australia, as of now, the website of every council presents the same information in a different way. What's required here is a consistent UI across the entire .gov sites.
Government sites by default need to cater for every edge case in terms of accessibility, and so functional takes precedence over pretty every time.
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
I honestly don't mind the Edinburgh site - I'd rather they focus on content and functionality rather than changing it every year to comply with the latest design fad.
Much prefer that one. Straight away I can see where to navigate to what I want, and I am not misdirected by the so called style. That nasty flat modern monstrosity that is the Manchester site is like a child's templated wet dream.
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.
Try to keep things in perspective - for a government site it is truly impressive. The usability should be the most important issue and in that category I Manchester did a bang up job. I'm impressed - and no framework it appears, the css is custom then?
I'm not sure the accessibility is 100% correct. I think you should be able to use the tab key to get to the links but tabbing skips the top row of icons... Which aren't technically hyperlinks I suppose..
Design is nice, but "baaaam" too much for what the page is and for who the page is. Why i have to click to open the services? Better show them directly.
It's interesting to see many local government websites now have a section of their website called "do it online" with sub-headings of "pay it online", "report it online", "request it online". It all seems a bit weird to me but there's obviously some communication channel.
While I agree that the trendy look of the site is better than most Government sites, it tries too hard to the point the change and potential this site could have had is gone. The reason Government websites are usually ugly is not because Government's are afraid of change or can't justify the cash it's because there are content accessibility guidelines to adhere too. And when you've got to make your content accessible to people with disabilities well your options can be somewhat limited (especially colour use).
This is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern web design. Instead of thinking, "What can we NOT add to this site design" designers seem to be thinking, "How many full screen images, rounded corners, parallax effects, CSS animations, Javascript effects and large amounts of custom fonts can we cram into this site?"
I can foresee a lot of issues for people with eyesight problems on this site, aren't Governments supposed to adhere to WCAG rules and a lot more stricter than non-Government websites do? The images don't even have alt tags on them, Web Developer common sense rule #1 — Always put alt tags on images, especially when they're being used as icons in content sections, wow.