Quickies: This is encouraging recycling? New city Web site
* This is the scene at Hugo's on Sunday evening. Either Waste Management has been really successful at encouraging recycling or they need to pick up more.Oh yeah, when does my apartment complex get a no-sort recycling bin?
* The city of Grand Forks has unveiled its new Web site. The links page with all the information for taxpayers -- to me, the most important one -- is pretty comprehensive.
There's a bunch of forms that you can fill in to request anything from repairing streetlights in your neighborhood to getting on the city mailing list for news releases. There's also information on current bids the city has open for construction and other services.
And there's what you've all been waiting for: Council TV online! Woohoo! Yeah, baby!! Come over to my quarters for some toast and we'll watch Council TV.
* JGS has an update on all the biz that's going up around town. GrandForksGuy has an update on the old Stratford Building downtown. Man, I always thought that place would look great with a brew-pub. Now it's massages and facials and stuff.
* The City Beat went to the movies this weekend for the first time in a long time. I won't complain since I don't know how the business works, but I can't help but wonder a) why the theater here charges $8 a ticket and theaters in Fargo charge less -- how much they charge, I don't recall -- and b) why, at that price, new theaters don't want to come to town. You'll recall that Canad Inns had such a hard time finding a theater operator that it told the City Council not to expect one, just some amenity to be determined. You'll also recall Columbia Mall announced about a year and half ago that Wallace Theaters is supposed to come to the old Target space. Whatever the delay is, they sure ain't in a hurry to get here.
(I saw Nacho Libre, by the way. It was hysterical. I expect the line "Have you ever had feelings for a nun?" to appear on T-shirts soon.)
* Almost forgot: Viva Italia! To think, we tied those guys.
posted by Tu-Uyen at 12:14 AM
15 Comments:
I don't get the city's recycling program - those colored milk crates were horrible and although sorting is no longer required we still have them. And why does recycling get picked up every other week while trash gets picked up weekly? The city needs to provide large non-sort containers (with lids!) and pick up weekly. I almost always have more recycling than regular trash.
Also, where can you bring plastic bags for recycling now?
Dave- I couldn't agree more about the design of the new site...although I'd put the concept somewhere in the mid-90s.
Enhanced features must be joined by attactive design to be effective...especially when today's consumers have grown accustomed to it.
Wow, what a horrible looking web site. Why are the photos in the top banner so blurry? Were they taken with a camera phone from 1/2 mile away? The one of the building, the way it is cut off, looks like a post-flood facade ready for demolition.
I just changed my resolution down from 1152x864 to 800x600 (It is obviously built for the lower resolution, which is OK considering the % of people still using it) in the hopes of correcting some of the issues. It didn't help. Everything looked BIG and blurry, including the text in the banner(?!?!?!).
What's with the clip art? The little camcorder image is so 1990 it's laughable (besides not being a transparent image, with the background showing through). I didn't look for one, but I'll bet there is one of the old, spinning "e-mail" images on there someplace as well.
Is this where my property tax is going?
To glass half full, I bought a large rubbermaid container for just a few bucks, and use that for my recycling. I know, we shouldn't have to buy anything, but I fit everything into it and I make just one trip to the curb.
To a large part, good design is absent from most GF enterprises: commercial, government, education.
(Anyone seen the UND Alumni magazine? It makes the city web site look award-winning.)
The bottom line is, unlike most city services and programs, good design needn't be expensive. And any peceived savings gained from lousy low-cost design is quickly lost in the overall usefulness-value, if you will-of your site.
Coffee Guy: I bought a container as well that certainly works but we should not have to supply these things and they should still pick up weekly! I detest the sight of everybody else's garbage!
My but the blogosphere is so harsh. I wasn't overwhelmed by the Web site either but, design aside, is it functional? I really like all the citizen feedback options, though perhaps they ought to be grouped together better.
Regarding the movie theatre situation - in terms of how the business works, the theatre chain itself makes very little off the sales of tickets. The bulk of the money goes to the studios and various other entities at the higher end of the food chain - usually the first couple weeks. So the price of tickets, while having some effect, does not translate directly into a profitable venture.
As for the announcements from both Canad (remember Carmike announced they would be running that location, to which Canad issued a strong denial) and Wallace, that is probably the result of two things. First, right around the time that the projects were announced, the industry as a whole went into a steep dive in terms of attendance and money. For instance, Carmike cancelled all projects not in process, including the one announced at the Carmike 10 in GF. Second - with both announcements, Grand Forks would have gained something like an additional 20 screens, when added to the existing 14 would have been an extreme overkill for the market. Fargo only has 31 screens and is substantially larger in terms of population.
Another thing to remember is that the chain makes the money off of the concessions. Now, if you compare the concession prices between GF and Fargo, you'll notice the larger disparity (ticket prices are comparable but with better facilities, i.e. stadium seating). CEC in Fargo will give you a larger size for a substantially lower amount. Not to mention a wider selection in concession items. In the end perhaps it comes down to the difference between a smaller chain and a larger one.
Carmike needs a competitor. I end up going to Fargo or MSP to see several movies because they do not come to GFK. I heard that Carmike has a contract that prevents another theatre from getting most new movie releases in this market. Wish the Empire would do more movie nights wtih international, independent, and artistic movies. Would add a lot to GFK.
A poor site design is a distraction, and limits the time one would want to spend on the site.
Is the website functional, as in can I find the information I need? Let's see...assume I'm a new resident trying to find out when my recycling day is. (Note: this is the same question I had when I first moved here) Four clicks (not too bad) brings me to this map: http://www.grandforksgov.com/gfgov/
home.nsf/Pages/Refuse+&+Recycling+Map
OK, now if I'm a new resident, how the hell am I supposed to know which street is which? We might know, as we've been here a while, but I will tell you that I had to go to an online mapping website to compare the city's map (this is the same old map that I used) with a readable map with street names, landmarks, etc. Couldn't the city at least provide a good quality PDF map?
I just looked at the garbage pickup map, and it IS a decent quality PDF, that looks just like the poor quality recycling map. Wouldn’t it be nice if they helped new residents figure that out a little more easily?
The new website sucks just as much as the original. At least I was used to the crappy navigation on the old site and I could find the one or two things I needed to find consistently.
The good news: they're certainly not wasting my property tax dollars on the website. This is defintely a no-cost redesign.
Four clicks (not too bad) brings me to this map: http://www.grandforksgov.com/gfgov/
home.nsf/Pages/Refuse+&+Recycling+Map
It's particularly helpful, in that the included calendar is for 2005!
Beg all you want, the only cost to the taxpayer on this 'redesign' was paying this person's salary. The check gets cashed whether this person is updating crappy photos, managing a server, or 'redesigning' the website. If the 'redesign' project didn't exist, this person would still be busy, and still be getting paid doing web admin for the city.
You can line item this person's daily duties, take out the 'redesign' hours and call it a cost. I call that semantics.
What!? The city must have paid an outside web consulting and design firm to help them with this. If not, that's part of the problem.
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Hi! Just want to say what a nice site. Bye, see you soon.
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