The Mayor of London’s website, www.london.gov.uk has recently undergone a make-over. It was due to be up and running by the end of 2009 but has finally made an appearance today. However, it’s littered with lorem ipsum which should all have been replaced with the correct text before the website went live.
There are no links to the GLA Acts of 1999 and 2007 in case you might want to check that the Mayor is complying with his statutory obligations. The search facility gives every document the date of 1 January 1970, all the links are broken and lead to “Page not found”.
Still, never mind, why not send your photos in to Boris’s Flickr group? You won’t find any photos of disgruntled firefighters or appalling turnouts for Boris’s events as this crazy, commie-style photo album is moderated and only features photos of happy citizens celebrating our glorious leader’s triumphs; usually Ken Livingstone or maybe Val Shawcross’s triumphs or sometimes nothing whatsoever to do with the GLA, but who likes to shun a good photo op, eh?.
Tags: 9 Comments
9 responses so far ↓
Sheesh, that design’s awful.
“We’re not going to spend lots of time telling you about what you’ll find on this site but we do hope you will browse around and see for yourself.”
I’ve tried, but unfortunately it seems pretty much browse-proof.
“And if you find any broken links or worse still any nasty bugs, please drop us a line and we’ll fix it.”
Tempting, isn’t it, but I really don’t have the time.
Ah, but there are extra lulz to be had for those of us with the benefit of a classical education; the opening sentence on the GLA page contains a fragment of a quote from Horace, complaining about certain persons of his acquaintance who are full of the most grandiose schemes and promises but ultimately produce bollock all. It translates roughly as “the mountains strain in the agony of birth; they will bring forth nothing but a silly little mouse.” Read into this what you will.
How awful is the new website. You cant find anything on there at all. It seems like Boris has spent my precept money on a flashy website promoting himself.
You couldn’t wait until a working day could you?
Here’s the GLA Act 1999 http://legacy.london.gov.uk/assembly/rulebook/storders.pdf
I think the images should stay moderated – to ensure people stay with the guidelines. And, of course for obvious reasons..e.g. decency of images.
Who says I don’t look at your blog?!
“Who says I don’t look at your blog?!”
I’m surprised you can spell it, Einy.
My views: it’s not bad, just awkward and unpolished – too many big white areas. Took a while to find Mayoral Answers, too:
http://mqt.london.gov.uk/mqt/
Geek note: It seems to have moved from Java to Drupal.
I am very surprised they’ve let it live launch with obvious errors such as blocks of holding text. It suggests a serious lack of attention to testing, content and usability. Whether it’s a working day or not is irrelevant – this is the sort of thing that should be identified prior to launch.
Design-wise: well, I’ve seen worse. It’s a lot better than Birimingham’s disasterous website launch (and presumably didn’t have Birmingham’s £2.3m price tag either). But it’s not exactly cutting edge – new CMS aside, it’s hard to see how it’s an improvement on what was there before.
It’ll be interesting to see some of these open-sourced Drupal modules as they come along. (btw the open source module concept is one the IDeA have been working with councils on for a couple of years).
I was pleased to see the site includes a new City Hall Blog which will be updated weekly. How on earth will someone as busy as Boris find the time to write a weekly missive. On top of the Telegraph one he gets paid 250k for, that is. Will Boris respond to blog comments in the way he does with Assembly scrutiny?
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