Web Site Watch: City of Colton
Back on May 12, 2005, The Press-Enterprise published an article about the City of Colton undertaking a web site overhaul. I thought it'd be fun to poke around on the City of Colton website now, discuss some of their issues here and then check back at the end of the year to see how they're doing.
Why do I care? Well, have you seen some of these city web sites? I won't use this platform to call anybody out, but good grief!
2 major goals of the City of Colton seem to be 1) making the web site more interactive and 2) making it easier to navigate. I sincerely applaud that. A brochure web site is nice for an accountant but on a city web site I wanna do stuff! Remember, web site users come to your site with decisions to make and problems to solve.
Here's a feature they're considering: the ability for residents to identify potholes in their neighborhood that need repair. Hmm, does the City of Corona web site have anything like that? I'll go check right now. Hey, they sure do! (And it took me only seconds to find - kudos Corona!). As a frequent driver, that's a feature I can appreciate. The key question is do they actually have the internal processes in place to support these features in a responsive manner? As I say in my post on web site feature-itis, good people and practices behind all the well-intended web site features are a must.
Just in my casual tour around the City of Colton web site I can already see some design issues I'd like to address in some future posts as I think it would be beneficial to other web site owners. Am I picking on the City of Colton? Certainly not. Their web site woes are perfectly normal and they should be supported in their quest for user-friendliness. Besides, they did agree to the Press-Enterprise article so I'd say they're looking for at least a little attention in regards to their overhaul project.
So stay tuned for the next episode of Web Site Watch: City of Colton.
Why do I care? Well, have you seen some of these city web sites? I won't use this platform to call anybody out, but good grief!
2 major goals of the City of Colton seem to be 1) making the web site more interactive and 2) making it easier to navigate. I sincerely applaud that. A brochure web site is nice for an accountant but on a city web site I wanna do stuff! Remember, web site users come to your site with decisions to make and problems to solve.
Here's a feature they're considering: the ability for residents to identify potholes in their neighborhood that need repair. Hmm, does the City of Corona web site have anything like that? I'll go check right now. Hey, they sure do! (And it took me only seconds to find - kudos Corona!). As a frequent driver, that's a feature I can appreciate. The key question is do they actually have the internal processes in place to support these features in a responsive manner? As I say in my post on web site feature-itis, good people and practices behind all the well-intended web site features are a must.
Just in my casual tour around the City of Colton web site I can already see some design issues I'd like to address in some future posts as I think it would be beneficial to other web site owners. Am I picking on the City of Colton? Certainly not. Their web site woes are perfectly normal and they should be supported in their quest for user-friendliness. Besides, they did agree to the Press-Enterprise article so I'd say they're looking for at least a little attention in regards to their overhaul project.
So stay tuned for the next episode of Web Site Watch: City of Colton.
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