Please review our site

[harrymossman]

We are planning to extensively revise our site. My part of it is at

http://sacramento.fws.gov/es/

If you like, you can fill out the online survey about the site.

Note: I am NOT responsible for the main page,

http://sacramento.fws.gov

nor for the pages of the other divisions.

 

[RoguePoet01]

Not bad at all.

Most government sites are on the simple and lean side anyway.

The "Site Search" link isn't working yet, so I'd disable it until then.

I like the way you folks keep changing the graphic in the upper-left. Are you using PHP? Is this on a server in your office?

If traffic is kind of your thing, keep it simple, and update it daily, even just a little bit.

Peace.

 

[harrymossman]

>The "Site Search" link isn't working yet, so I'd disable it until then.

Actually, this is our current site. I did not realize that the Site Search wasn't working. It's part of the national website.

The changing images are from a Javascript. One of the IT people set that up. I don't know much about it. As I mentioned, I only do the Endangered Species part of the site.

 

[GUJUm0deL]

RoguePoet01, I beg to differ on "Most government sites are on the simple and lean side anyway."

I work for a city orginization as a web designer and our site is not "simple and lean sided", but in your defense a lot of government sites are simple, not because the designers can't make it look sleek and visually attractive but because most govenrment agencies feel the content is more important then the look and feel of it, and in doing so neglect the fact that a sleek site is user friendly.

The site of my agency is visually attractive as much as we can make it without having high-level administrator's coming down on us thinking we're concentrating more in visual look then content look. Unlike private companies who thrive on both visual and content, government agencies only thrive content, which is a shame to some extent.

But back to the post topic, harrymossman's your site is nicly done, but a thought, wouldn't the site search be more effective if you had the search box on the page itself and not as a link to another page?? Also I would try to use something as a background image for the site, while white is an acceptable color for a government site, an image makes it look more "alive". Our site uses a faded department logo.

_{I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage. It's no big deal really...}

 

[mwolf00]

button images are broken on

http://sacramento.fws.gov/ec/default.htm

you link to

sacramento.fws.gov/ec/graphics/buttons/ec_buttons_r1_c1_f2.gif

when it should be
sacramento.fws.gov/ec/images/buttons/ec_buttons_r1_c1_f2.gif


Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rick Cook (No, I'm not Rick)

 

[mwolf00]

button images on

http://sacramento.fws.gov/fwr/default.htm

are different - why?

Also, most images are web optimized (<10k), but your initial image is 50k and killdeer_chick.jpg is 25k - seems like they could be optimized also.


Overall, it looks nice, just nail down the consistency...

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rick Cook (No, I'm not Rick)

 

[harrymossman]

Thanks for all of your comments. You have reinforced some of the ideas we are planning to implement.

When we started building the site about 4 years ago, the idea was that each of the 5 divisions would have a webmaster who designed and kept up their pages.

Unfortunately, this was all under &quot;other duties as assigned.&quot; So the pages for 3 of the divisions have never been updated! They are pretty much the way they were when we went online about 3 years ago! That is why there are inconsistencies and why some of the pages have so many broken links.

The whole site will now be maintained by the External Affairs Division and myself. (We tried to get me moved over to EA but my division wouldn't let go of me.)

I only do the pages that start with sacramento.fws.gov/es.

I agree that having a search box on the page itself is the ideal way to go. I'll try to do it that way.

As for simple and lean, my orientation is definitely with the Usability and Accessibility movements. I want the pages to be attractive but not if the decoration ever gets in the way of either usability or accessibility. A faded background logo sounds like a good idea.

Thanks again!
Harry