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.
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).
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.
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 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 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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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
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.
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...
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.
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)
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?
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.
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'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..
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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That is brilliant, thank you very much for this.
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.
http://www.wakegov.com/
One improvement would be an auto-complete feature on the main search box, but I think I'm in a pretty small minority that would benefit from that.
My http://glasgow.gov.uk isn't any better
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk
http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/
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'.
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.
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.
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.
But minimal websites doesn't have to be ugly of course.
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.
Since The other guy counter-argued using those same terms so I can only assume that our opinions differ.
Websites should maximize user experience, i.e. how pleasantly the user feels. Aesthetics and usability contribute to that.
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.
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.
Not only is the landing page excellent, but most websites can't figure out layout beyond the landing page. Check out an article page:
https://www.gov.uk/being-taken-to-employment-tribunal-by-emp...
Simply elegant.
Edit - The landing page could look less like a sea of links if they put a simple 16x16 glyph icon next to each link that represents it.
A page full of black text on a white background? Sounds like you're on some kind of ideological trip.
Good design involves a lot more than eye candy.
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.
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.
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.
This is a modern government website design I like better: http://www.kk.dk
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.
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
Icons vs Labels vs Both: http://edwardsanchez.me/blog/13589712
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.
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...
When I need information related to goverment services, first thing where I look are search engines.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For example, rollover states are either missing, inverting to hard to read colors, or... weird. Who designs buttons without designing and testing rollover states?
But then again Gateshead is near Newcastle so its hard to argue...
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 don't know the rules in the UK, but shouldn't the site work without JavaScript enabled (For the visually impaired)?
I am still clicking around... can anyone find it, I wonder?
Plus, you can find it very easily by putting "council tax band" into the search box.
Here's a particularly unhelpful FAQ, which says the data is "displayed on our web pages" http://www.manchester.gov.uk/faqs/faq/19013/what_can_i_do_if...
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.
[1]: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/...
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.
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.
"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!
...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.