Why is the Birmingham City Council website so bad?
2nd July 2008 by David North
It’s a constant annoyance to me how bad the Birmingham City Council website. Even with a fairly recent makeover it just doesn’t project Birmingham’s image well (it’s top of Google for “Birmingham” for a start).
I understand the amount of information on the site is massive but surely it could be organised better? Public sector websites of course have strict targets to reach with regard to website accessibility but this is no excuse for a poor design. After all if Birmingham is, as I seem to remember, the largest council in Europe surely it should be able to throw the resource at the website. I’ve given up numerous times trying to find information I need - maybe I’m just lazy but I don’t think I’m the only one to have this problem. An extra bit of investment here might well see costs being reduced elsewhere as the website will be doing it job properly.
Just to prove this challenge isn’t unobtainable take a look at Woking Borough Council’s website which does a much better job of it mixing an excellent blend of simple design, accessibility with usability for visitors.
To be fair to Birmingham City Council they aren’t the only public sector website that fails in fact from my experience the successes are in the minority. However projecting Birmingham as a great city has got to be done across the board and I believe currently this is a bit of a let down.
