Wasn't sure what board this should go under...
So I've noticed Mayor Brown's Twitter account advertising the beta City of Jacksonville website. I'd love to know who they paid to develop to build and design the site so that I could give them a hi-5 for ripping the City off. I'm not from Jacksonville nor do I live in Jacksonville anymore, but I'm embarrassed that this site would represent the city. It looks as though someone paid an undergrad in 1992 to build the site. In comparison, it looks worse than the existing COJ site (which admittedly isn't that bad).
Being that I went to school for Graphic Design and grad school for Human Centered Design, it just rubs me the wrong way. I'd be interested to get other's take on it.
http://beta.coj.net/
Sidenote... the Jacksonville Armada's logo is pretty horrible as well. Did Dalton design that?
Heard the head of the City IT Department talk about the beta site - was designed in-house.
Wow, that's even more depressing. They are paying some person(s) 40 hours a week for that caliber of work.
Apparently they volunteered to take it on, in addition to their normal duties in IT.
I think it's okay, at least for beta. Not very many cities have good web pages. Charlotte and San Diego's are horrible. Portland is okay. Seattle's is pretty good as well.
This is newsworthy? Lol!
I think it's a step back when you have to guess which button to select to get to a limited content site map which may have you going back to guess again. A dedicated site map button to acess a page with ALL the pages listed, with the appropriate headings, would be a good idea.
Shoulda went with Squarespace...
This new COJ site is near unnavigable.
I have to agree with you. I can see what the City was going for, but it's awful as implemented. Things are so well hidden that not even the search feature can reveal them.
Perhaps Mayor Curry will get someone working on Version 3.
Here's the site map:
http://www.coj.net/all-of-coj/site-map.aspx
might be easier to bookmark that.
Also, there's a feedback link on the top of the page should you want to share your comments with the city :)
It took me something like 20 minutes to locate a meeting schedule for a City Commission. Which, to me, all COJ public meetings should be on a Google calendar somewhere. And maybe they are, but I surely can't find them.
Good call on sharing comments and feedback.