New City of GR website

[fotoman311 50]

The city has given it's website a facelift. I haven't had a chance to look around much, but supposedly there are structural changes to make it easier to use as well.

The basic layout and categorization seems to be pretty similar, but it definitely is a lot nicer to look at. The banner photo changes with each page, which is kinda cool.

http://www.grcity.us

[grbrit 2]

The city has given it's website a facelift [...] supposedly there are structural changes to make it easier to use as well.

[fotoman311 50]

It looks nice, but a quick glance at the code seems to suggest it's still using the underlying Perl from previously. I'd love to get my hands on it and turn it into a nice, user- (and search engine-) friendly CMS system, but then I'm biased as we have one of the best CMS systems around

[AlexPKeaton 1]

It looks nice, but a quick glance at the code seems to suggest it's still using the underlying Perl from previously. I'd love to get my hands on it and turn it into a nice, user- (and search engine-) friendly CMS system, but then I'm biased as we have one of the best CMS systems around

[GRDadof3 3158]

This was kind of my first thought. It seems mostly just like a facelift. If they spent 9 months redoing it, as Kurt Kimball said in his introduction of the site, I would have liked to have seen them go all out. Make it RSS friendly and all the newer type of things that a great, modern, interactive website seems to have. Make it so it's easy for lots of different city employees and departments to add useful content.

Also, on my IE 6.0.29 at work, the main content gets pushed down so that it STARTS at the bottom of the right column, so I have to scroll down a bunch to read anything on the main start page.

Oh, and as a hobbyist photography, the photographs look a bit like they were shrunk down to a smaller size and then stretched out to fit in the space of the banner.

[grbrit 2]

Also, on my IE 6.0.29 at work, the main content gets pushed down so that it STARTS at the bottom of the right column, so I have to scroll down a bunch to read anything on the main start page.

[suydam 1]

Their skin fails in Firefox 3 as well.

[jbr12 1]

Works fine on my FireFox 3... but I also have a monster resolution...

[GRobserver 0]

I notice some similarity between the new design and the Rapid Growth site. Same designer?

[GRDadof3 3158]

I sure hope not.

Having the City of Grand Rapids hire a local "media outlet" to produce a website for them has all kinds of sticky implications, IMO.

[robness1981 0]

It looks nice, but a quick glance at the code seems to suggest it's still using the underlying Perl from previously. I'd love to get my hands on it and turn it into a nice, user- (and search engine-) friendly CMS system, but then I'm biased as we have one of the best CMS systems around

[PR-15 0]

The DDA has hired RapidGrowth to build a new "Projects" website for them. This thread reminded me that I wonder when that will go live.

[amylynne 14]

The design is better, but a quick glance at a few pages (farmer's market and rosa parks ice skating) shows me a lot of outdated content.

[grbrit 2]

Having the City of Grand Rapids hire a local "media outlet" to produce a website for them has all kinds of sticky implications, IMO.

[CityDesigner 0]

This was kind of my first thought. It seems mostly just like a facelift. If they spent 9 months redoing it, as Kurt Kimball said in his introduction of the site, I would have liked to have seen them go all out. Make it RSS friendly and all the newer type of things that a great, modern, interactive website seems to have. Make it so it's easy for lots of different city employees and departments to add useful content.

Also, on my IE 6.0.29 at work, the main content gets pushed down so that it STARTS at the bottom of the right column, so I have to scroll down a bunch to read anything on the main start page.

Oh, and as a hobbyist photographer, the photographs look a bit like they were shrunk down to a smaller size and then stretched out to fit in the space of the banner.

[robness1981 0]

I may be wrong, but I think:

http://www.northropgrumman.com/locations/index.html

[AlexPKeaton 1]

Originally it was supposed to be just coded for IE 7, but we've now gotten in a fix that will hopefully make it look better in IE6.

[Veloise 46]

... I work for the City as a Graphic Illustrator... - MMoore