Sunday, October 4, 2009

Our aging city website and search engine - Is Redmond government being responsible?

In times of emergencies people go to search engines for fast answers.  Have you tried searching the City of Redmond Search Engine?  Good luck.  The first hurdle is finding it.  Look for the little box in the upper right corner of http://www.redmond.gov/

With winter storms approaching,  search topics like community radio 1650  and tree removal permits are relevant and important to Redmond citizens.  I  searched  the City Search Engine and for both topics with poor results, as follows: 

NEW SEARCH:  Redmond Community Radio 1650
Link to Document Found
http://www.redmond.gov/insidecityhall/police/publicinformation/advisoryboard.asp

SEARCH RESULT:  Redmond Police. 2009 Community Police Advisory Board. Community Policing Advisory Board The Redmond Police Community Policing Advisory Board is a volunteer group of community members who assist with creating and improving problem solving strategies for the diverse problems and issues brought to the atte    5/6/2009 4:40:36 PM

NEW SEARCH:  Tree Removal Permit
Link to Document found:
http://www.redmond.gov/insidecityhall/planning/devreview/questions.asp

SEARCH RESULT:  Frequently Asked Questions. This page contains downloadable forms in the Adobe Acrobat format. In order to view or print the forms you must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. (Obtain freeAcrobat Reader. Do I need a permit to build a fence? If you wish to build a fence, you do n
5/2/2007 9:25:17 PM
The above "Redmond Community Radio 1650" search result and link finds nothing about the radio.  The "Tree Removal Permit" search result is meaningless. The link is helpful, but the engine provides no reason to click on it.

Do you want to try a Search for yourself?  Click:  "City Search Engine" and good luck.

You will find, the city search engine craps out on most searches.   The Ives and Marchione Administration have been cognizant of this problem and our severely outdated city website for years, but continue to make no improvements.   To date, all that has been "done" is: 1) conduct an online website survey.  Have you taken  it?  and 2) held a few focus groups. I  attended one, without results.

The public and council authorized $300,000 this biennium to build a new website as part of a budget priority called "Responsible Government".   Almost two years later nothing of substance has been done to improve the city website.   Is this "Responsible Governement"?  Try the website and search engine and decide for yourself.   http://www.redmond.gov/   Then write the mayor and tell him what you think.  mayor@redmond.gov

1 comment:

  1. Bob,

    You are so right. The most important thing a city should have on its home page is emergency information. It should be easily accessible. No one has time to do a search when there's an emergency.

    I found disaster preparedness and emergency information after I searched the site, which was easy to do as I sip my morning coffee, but not so easy to do when there's an emergency.

    Kirkland has a button right on the front page of the city website.

    ReplyDelete

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