Work continues apace on the site. Still lots of work to be done, particularly to integrate all the interactive elements of the site, but we are aiming to launch in a couple of weeks.
Having previously posted some static screenshots of the new design we have now released a “beta” version. As a beta site it’s not fully functioning at the moment but most of the content should be there and a number of the applications should also work. Some of the things that won’t quite do what you expect are the search, local information, online services, forms and payments.
Do feedback your thoughts on how things are shaping up.
Just been playi…testing the beta site.
Seems quite “responsive” in that the individual pages/menus don’t take too long to load (so not too picture intensive).
The ability to select more/fewer news/events is a nice touch as by default the news list streamed off the bottom – is there something similar planned for the job section or… ?
The other thing I noticed was that the Quick Links section was pretty much off the bottom of my page (when viewed at 1600×1200 – it wasn’t visible at all on 1600×1050); could the Quick links section be somewhere a bit more visible or reduce the size of the “Local Information” block (I realise screen real estate is at a premium though so might not be possible).
It’s a nice easy site to use in a text-only browser as well, everything is simply laid out (I’d test with a screen reader as well if I had one 😉 ).
Overall, if you view the new page side-by-side with the old page, it is a vast improvement that you guys should be proud of! 🙂
R.
I like it, great work by all involved.
I particularly like the main landing pages for the top categories, they look good and focus the attention into the specific areas – one thing though – in Firefox the images sused for the text (flash?) sometimes do not link to the content.
Great blog, really useful stuff, thanks.
I still find the pink a bit garish as various other people commenting did but you can’t please everyone.
I was disappointed that the vision strapline at the top of the home page doesn’t link through to a full statement of the vision, and also the vision doesn’t appear anywhere else (at least it’s not in the A-Z). Can this be rectified please?
I also found the drop down lists on the left hand side of the page a bit slow to open from the main section title but maybe that’s because it’s a beta version?
the pink is too strong and hurts my eyes, the blue text appears blurred. you may need to check colour scheme out with disability groups – sight and dyslexics – as they give advice.
Hi Roger,
I’m guessing you’re involved with the council in some way? In the defence of team working on this project, us non-council people really don’t care to much about your vision. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but I’m afraid it’s the truth.
A website is a place for delivering the vision not talking about it.
Sorry it’s taken a wee while to get back to some of the points raised.
On the home page we’ve switched the Quick Links and Do It Online panels round as a result of feedback. We’ll now be doing a further round of more formal user testing to compare site usability with the previous site and the layout of home page functions will certainly be an area that we look at in a bit more detail.
Our use of pink appears to have been our “marmite” moment – you either love it or hate it! Jean’s comment is an interesting one which we will certainly assess as part of our accessibility accreditation process. We will shortly be submitting the new site to SHAW Trust and we’ll see what they think.
I think most users would expect to be able to click in the header area and go back to the home page, even though this isn’t explicit from the design. Again this is something that we can verify through user testing.
There are a few other specific points that have been made that the team will be looking at now that we’ve got the launch out of the way.
Thanks for all your feeback – it’s all been really useful.