Flutterby™! : Purple Monkey redesigns Chattanooga.gov 2005-05-17 14:01:44.758154+00

Purple Monkey redesigns Chattanooga.gov

2005-05-17 14:01:44.758154+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

Tara Calishain passed along this press release about Purple Monkey Studios redesigning Chattanooga.gov. First impressions about the site: Buggy menus that could be easily fixed, but have problems in the version of Opera I have on my laptop, and blockade off huge areas of the site when used with Lynx (wonder what those interested in ADA compliance will have to say about that?).

And once again Chattanooga has looked to the outside when those skills exist locally. Sigh.

I don't think that ADA applies to web sites any more. It doesn't appear to be in the guidelines any more.

Also, I don't know what to make of the concern around Chattanooga government looking elsewhere for web design and hosting. Aren't we just talking about simple site design and simple hosting? Is there anyone in Chattanooga who would do the site design on a fiscally responsible budget that isn't an individual contractor?

Yeah, I actually don't know about the current status of the ADA, and I'm not generally a fan on principle, it's just that pramatically for a while there it was doing good things for web design.

The anonymous backchannel tells me that the impression amongst those who could have done this in 'nooga is that this was pre-arranged and officially sent out for bid with too short a deadline for anyone local to have time to make a responsible bid. I don't know whether that's true, but it certainly fits the general impression I (and others) have of a culture always looking elsewhere for answers, rarely supporting itself.

#Comment Re: fiscally responsible budgets? made: 2005-05-17 20:34:57.948611+00 by: phil_knox

Word is that Chattanooga forked over ~$500K for this site. Considering the facts that it doesn't render properly in Opera or Firefox, and it isn't very friendly to people who don't see too well, I'd say we didn't get anywhere near our money's worth.

#Comment Re: made: 2005-05-18 00:17:27.731325+00 by: meuon [edit history]

a) A resolution authorizing the City Finance Officer to execute a contract with Purple Monkey Studios, Inc. for the initial design and development of a new City-wide website in an amount not to exceed $162,978.84 and a blanket contract for subsequent website development services after completion.

There are some VERY good web design companies in Chattanooga, and I know of at least two that looked hard at bidding the job. I do not know of they did.

The projects requirements were wide in some places, very specific in others with requirements of lots of other people to get their parts working.. and one of your measure of success was integrating all these systems.. getting others to do things..

The reputation of the client (the City, Mark Keil..) in such (tech) projects was that of one that was difficult to work with and slow and/or hard to get paid for such projects.

And I should have never been a nice guy and GIVEN

'chattanooga.gov' to the city.. But I'm a nice guy..

My take: If the City is actually happy, and Purple Monkey and all the rest of the involved parties got paid.. Kewl. If not. Well.. Purple Monkey is in Chicago... kinda hard to pressure them into getting it fixed.

it doesn't render properly in Opera or Firefox

Looks OK to me in Firefox, what's broken for you?

#Comment Re: made: 2005-05-18 13:55:24.322261+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

I don't remember exactly which specs we have to follow, but state law here requires that our websites be ADA compliant.