as of 10:30am it looks as if the site has crashed!

Hm, not terribly surprising that a newly-launched site is a bit crashy. However, the crash screen reveals that the site is based on Microsoft technologies; sort of old-school, corporate, and boring. Grmf.

Norquay is not in the listing of 55 areas – but something called Quilchena is?

All along we knew that the verbal fabrication was nothing more than a promo for land grab in the heart of East Vancouver.

Hmmm…I apparently now live in “Shaughnessy,” which seems to extend at least as far east as Cambie. Who knew?!

I have to admit to my less than stellar knowledge about what existed on the old site (especialy all the “good” stuff, like staff reports, meeting minutes, etc)–and where same were located.

There’s always a motherload of wonderful stuff from committees, reports, notes, etc. that one can find in virtually any government agency, if one knows where to dig for them.

Anyone noting/keeping tabs on what’s gone AWOL, info-wise?

Norquay gone, but Renfrew expands its empire to tussle with Collingwood.

And I see Mole Hill is a district. Mole Hill!!
Is this a new “Monaco” to fight with the tiny Granville Island of Guernsey?

And Hastings Crossings (Victory Square) is a realtors squib not generally recognized as the city does not know of “East Village” the monstrous BIA attempt to quaintify Hastings-Sunrise (not there either).
Grandview is separated from Woodlands in the list? Yet the planning district is G-W.

Did you see (I’m using a blind text browser (Blynx)) the “[147]Hidden Page Index” at the bottom of the page? [ links to http://vancouver.ca/hiddenPageIndex.aspx
]
And why 148 links on the page rather than the 45 on the previous design.
Something is rotten in the the state of Vancouver (and I don’t mean the official title of this blog if you ever looked up, but a Hamlettian reference.)

Back to Bruce MacDonald’s Vancouver: An Illustrated History book maps for sustenance.
There we had the psychic districts and their development. Why hasn’t the city financed a re-issue with updating, and to be magnimous, add in all the surrounding cities whose work has been done (See the Millennium maps of Burnaby.ca )

Maybe we are waiting for link [148]Sitemap protocol 0.9 to click over to readiness.

And heard Karen Best on the CBC morning show with the poor substitute host, Stephen Quinn, this morning.
Why does Karen Best talk in UPTALK, raising her tone at the END OF SENTENCES? Odd that.

I see in the Kerrisdale Courier today that the Parks Board Commisioner Blight of Vancouver is claiming that a joint Parks-City web site is better than the old VancouverParks.ca site and the new mish-mash will get more visitors.
Not likely.

I click on Musqeum and I get Dunbar. Close, but no cigar!

@ 10 Andy Longhurst: thanks a bunch for the “former.” tip: I found the directory.

Darn, vancouver.ca taking forever to load, so will have to work from memories of my intial reaction…

I have a comment on type size, content and design. Design of the home page is better, and I like the insta info on the rt-hand sidebar. More “news you can use” but it still has a way to go.

And somehow, somewhere, it looks like some well meaning functionary assured all CH departments that they would all get their moment in the sun, and get their long-winded points across on the home page—even if the public has to read all about it in mouse type!

Come on, talented Communications Department (and I know you are), think marketing and service at the ‘front of house’ and eye-glazing details via links in snappy headlines that will flsesh it all out on other screens. You’re killing the ledes!

See the 2011 State and City winners here http://www.centerdigitalgov.com/survey/88/2011
for excellent visuals, page layout, hilighted and basic info.

Love the State of Arkansas and City of Louisville sites, especially. Crisp, short and to the point headlineson home page that lead you to the details. I didn’t get dizzy or feel overwhelmed with the home page, and it was both logical progression as well as a voyage of discovery to quickly find stuff that interested me.

Smart use of space (and lots of white space), good type size, big pictures, and “movement’ with ever-changing short factoids or stories loaded onto the home page. very interesting and quite dynamic, too. You CAN display both ‘the basics’ as well as the PR in tandem on that front page.

On the more prosaic side, Louisville makes the scheduled garbage days for your own address easy to figure out—just plug your address into the search engine for the service. (PS. On the policy/political side, See how Louisville dealing with their own kind of housing problems…written very well and accessible to the lay person).

This kind of design and copy-writing virtually invites citizens inside, without them having to wade through extraneous much on the home page.

I had gone to look at NYC, LA’s and Chicago’s sites, thinking I would be “wowed” but they are, in a word, crap. Perhaps someone mistakes a decent, well, designed, service oriented, intuitive website as too controversial?!

So City of Vancouver, with a few more tweaks, I think you might be heading in the right direction, at least from a design standpoint. Trust me, the public will be eternally grateful if you make it easy for them to get the info they want and need.

I’m extremely impressed with knowing that IF I was in a wheelchair, the beaches (except Wreck) are now accessible with two beach wheelchairs provided and shared by all Vancouver beaches. Times they are a changin’! (Thanks to Tim and Sam)

@babalu // Aug 8, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Haha, I live in in the Tri-Cities, I just call it Coq. Works for me and my feeble attempts at texting!

How is it even possible to spend $3ooo,000 on a website ?

That amount is excessive, in view of what we currently see and are experiencing in “user interface” as the techies like to say.

Thought of The Day

“Vancouver got the worst website that 3$ Million could buy… oh, wait, that was supposed to be “the worst leadership 3$ Million could buy”… oh, wait …!”

Compared to this useless upgrade, the cool $100,ooo for the Trio’s trip to the London Olympics 2012 really starts to feel like “a drop in a bucket”.

Is it me, or the self entitled assholeism is alive and kicking inside Vancouver’s City Hall these days?

Is there any accountability what-so-ever left?
Just because they have two more years of crazy decision making, it means they can “spend” this city into the ground?

What makes a Vancouverite?
Don’t make me laugh. Playing ignorant or stupid as you read the news re. the cost associated with “VancouverDotCa” as if nothing happened, makes one a Vancouverite these days.

Vancouver voters really need to buy a T-shirt with this, and fast:
…………………………………………………………………
Vancouver + Stupid = Stupider
–> “ICH BIN EIN STUPIDER!”
…………………………………………………………………

We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

wonder how Jeff got the 3M figure…

The city should have contacted me. I could have had the new site built for $2 million. I’d even make sure all the pages worked and even throw in the url renewal for another 10 years at no extra cost.

Oh, oh, Glissy’s back.
Bye all.

Look Glissy, it wasn’t Vision who peed in your soup, it was the guys on Wall Street.

I guess no one as read or is ignoring this line on the website regarding the mapping?

‘On the City of Vancouver website, we use areas, not true neighbourhoods, to focus information for particular parts of the city.’

So because this website doesn’t tell you population figures they are lost to the ether?

How about you tell them instead of a blog.

http://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/news-event-for-website.aspx

boohoo, for those of us who have been tracking specific city data for the better part of a decade, it is frustrating to have it suddenly disappear.

Jeff Lee over at the Sun says today:

…”The revamp is Vancouver’s fourth rebuild of its website in a decade, reflecting how quickly applications and services can become out of date.
The 60,000 pages on the old site have been pared down to about a third of that, and are now centered more closely around what Best calls a “one-city, citizen-centred system” rather than a monolithic government presence.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/City+Vancouver+revamps+website+following+dismal+ratings+users/7060595/story.html

Lost pages? Why? They may not be found easily but if you are setting up internalGoogle then somehow they are caugh in the users’ net.
Better if they were “tagged” better.

““Not all council documents will be on the new site, so we still have to direct people to the search engine on the old site for those,” said Best.”

Here’s an item of informed & curated journalism for fbula’s audience (offered only because Frances is away for a bit, and hasn’t been filing to the Globe):

http://blogs.canada.com/2012/08/09/why-did-the-citys-revamped-website-cost-3-million-city-of-van-breaks-it-down-for-courier/

And here’s what appears to be an informed blog-post from a qualified observer:

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2012/08/why-the-city-of-vancouver-website-cost-3-million/

ovr&out

According the source code, the CMS used is Open Text. Other customers include Surrey, Edmonton, Las Vegas, San Francisco…

All FWIW

Thought of The Day

“I couldn’t find any information on what happened to Jimmy The Friendly Goat of the Stanley Park Petting Zoo fame… like he disappeared in thin air!”

The only thing that the Vision Administration will be remembered for, will be the sick Fire-Hire games they played with the City of Vancouver staff through their handpicked madam , Ballem.

They spent $3Mill. on a website? Water under the bridge. If you add the Robertson’s Riot, Occupy Vancouver, Olympic Village Fiasco, Severance package after Severance package paid on the QT… this is simply only petty cash really.
Add to that the salaries of the Three or Four Top Bureaucrats in the past years, and you’ll have a small 6/49 Jackpot win on your hands.
Pitiful.

The thing is, when you spend this amount of dough on links that takes you to… “Gregor Robertson”, the “Savior”, the “Listener”, the “Comrade”, the “Comandante Supremo de la Revolución Verde”, well one has to say it, something is not right.

Then, I came across Heather Deal chatting on the radio explaining how we have to shut up and take it like a “City”, ’cause you see, they know it best, and the project is right on the money, and that, and the other, with lots and lots of info. re. how the money was spent… blah, blah, blah.
Keep in mind that George Affleck had no clue on how the money was spent, and the rationale behind it, which tells me that the info. was privy only to select Vision Vancouver hacks in Office and from behind closed doors meetings full of transparency and openness… if you catch my drift.

Heather, if you happen to read this I have only one humble request… take it easy on the Treasury Trough, as that needs to cover lots of perks, like… street litter & garbage collection, grass cutting, park washrooms maintenance, street paving, sewage retrofits… your pumped up remunerations…

Trish #48,
Second that. My experience exactly!
Talk about duplication of services, LOL!

babalu #33,
I’ll take that as a compliment.
Oh, btw, FYI, I never went away, I just didn’t feel inspired, boring summer really… till now,
and this is for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAV3bOJaQuY
🙂

We live in Vancouver and this keep us busy.