Thanks for the comment. I had a brief look at the Birmingham home page today, but haven’t ventured into the site yet. From a high level view of the home page it seems that user tasks and flow have not been given much consideration. We are currently conducting user research for our website, which is in drastic need of an overhaul, and am acutely aware of the type of goals our users have. Birmingham City’s users will of course be different, but not that different.

Michele

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I should declare I have a vested interest: I’m a usability consultant with a special interest in the public sector (from my own time in Local Government website management). So I would say this: Test with the user.

Like you I applaud council’s slipping away from the (largely untested) straight jacket of the LGNL but am concerned that the investment in new sites with novel solutions or web 2.0 features are driven by either the personal enthusiasm of the web team or the the new features of the CMS.

Given the life span of Council sites, and the limited opportunities to spend significant amounts on them, this seems at best a great shame, and at worst, jeopardising public money.

cheers

Rob

I have to say, as many others have, that the proof will be in the pudding with this one. If Lancashire’s users find the site easy to use and helps them meet their goals, then we can safely say it’s a success. Usability evaluation and analysis of statistics and customer feedback are really the only sure fire ways to find out if it works, for Lancashire’s users. We, after all, are expert users!

Michele

Two strengths on Lancashire’s site for me are the prominent switch to Classic view (which is not obvious on Westminster’s site) and the strong single-image design of the site’s homepage to support council campaigns.

Provided they can maintain the freshness of the design by further campaign images, I think it’s a potential winner.

But as ever, its all very well having a Google style homepage. If you don’t get the fundamentals behind it right then its all rather academic. Reliance on the search means that users must be able to find what they’re looking for first time (or second at a push).

I gave up on the new model pretty quickly, switching to Classic view for an altogether better user experience.