PD Website - Please Visit! Looking for feedback...

[Max_Payne]

No longer looking for input on our department webpage.

[Cannady]

Our local PD has a facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/San-Angelo-TX/City-Of-San-Angelo-Police-Department/90959687555

They update it frequently with different things and it's a pretty good PR tool for the time it has been up from what I can tell.

[Gotts56]

My local PD has their own page... or like fan page on Facebook. They usually just post major arrests and wanted people on it all day though.

If you do make a page on facebook, please make it alot more interesting than my local PD's haha.


Why does this site only take up the left side of the page and not the whole pagE?

[LINY]

Please don't take offense, but not at all. Nearly 70 percent of the webpage itself is just empty space. Center the webpage, find a nice looking background that of a higher resolution, and spend more time creating the interface (buttons and such).

Here is what I think is a good example:

http://www.co.suffolk.ny.us/police/

[E3CSHARP]

Consider Twitter also Max Payne

[davisac]

all the flashing light graphics etc don't seem to give a professional degree to the site. IMHO

[Taylor1430]

Way too much empty space. The content took up approximately 1/4 of my monitor.

Also, way too much glitter and fashion. Cut out that stuff and make it look a professional goverment website

There are plenty of content managment systems out there to help you with this. You can PM me for some recommendations.

[jannino]

yea... it looks like a ghetto myspace page

[phillydog07]

Facebook is good. For a more local reference, check out SPPD's facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Saint-Paul-MN/St-Paul-Police-Department/94537259165?ref=ts

Also, your city should invest in a good web designer for it's website (and subsequently yours). The best sites I've seen are one's which seem to be a part of the city's main site. I've tried to include a mix of bigger departments and one's which are closer to your department's size. Remember, functionality is more important than aesthetics. Think about what the citizen's of your city would want when they go to your site.

http://www.ci.bloomington.mn.us/cityhall/dept/police/police.htm

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/

http://www1.umn.edu/police/

http://www.duluthmn.gov/police/index.cfm

http://www.ci.eagan.mn.us/live/page.asp?menu=2218

http://www.ci.columbia-heights.mn.us/police_web/police.asp

http://www.ci.new-hope.mn.us/departments/police/index.shtml

[AuxNY]

May also want to create a Wikipedia entry for your PD if there isn't one already.

[marcusindc]

all the flashing light graphics etc don't seem to give a professional degree to the site. IMHO

+1

and way to much empty space.

[Max_Payne]

In reply to the 'empty space' issue, since our website is off the city server, we have to have that extra section to match the rest of the city pages. That's why the water and such is there.

[phillydog07]

Find a college student interested in web design or computer stuff, pay them next to nothing and call it an internship.

[nonickname69]

Honestly, it looks pretty unprofessional. Take out all the goofy graphics you found on MySpace.

Also they layout doesn't take up the entire page. I'm using Firefox. It was all on the left side with about 2/3 of that weird blue background showing.

Loose the weather info too. I'm at your site to find info about the PD not if it is raining or not.

I would use that slick Detroit Lakes Police logo with the sailboat as your page top that looks pretty sharp on its own.

[Max_Payne]

Ouch! This is a little harsh. I was looking for some 'positive' feed-back, some good to go with the bad... it took a lot of work and input from others to get it looking the way it is. But I don't see many comments tempered with all the negative opinions. Back to the drawing board, I guess?