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* Next week’s committee hearings were posted right before the site went down. I finally gave up at about 11 o’clock last night…
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:21 am
Previous Post: Illinois Press Association CEO resigns after board orders him to withdraw from lawsuit filed to protect journalists (Updated)
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The new site is change for the sake of change and LIS has not been able to offer any explanation of how the new site is an improvement.
As many websites do, they should offer an opportunity to return to the “classic” version. And, then monitor the traffic to see how much each is used.
Comment by Moe Berg Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:28 am
Wonder how much taxpayer money was spent on a re-design that doesn’t work, and is harder to use? Typically Illinois…
Comment by thisjustinagain Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:35 am
I tried to suspend my irritation at the new website’s clunkiness for several months, thinking I would figure it out over time. However, I still feel that “pang of dread” that Rep Williams describes, every time I have to access and attempt to navigate it.
The new website is not an improvement over the old, but a step or two backward.
Comment by Linus Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:39 am
Sideways related, the Illinois State Police in the past 3 weeks have redesigned their offender registration map.
The new site is atrociously bad to the point of almost being unusable.
The functionality to define a search radius by simply clicking on the map is now gone. It has been replaced with a requirement for a specific street address to use as the center of any search radius. Each part of the address is it’s own field, for a total of four fields to now fill out. Each individual field is now required and only takes manual input.
The ability to get a listing of offenders by zip code is now gone. There is no similar functionality to accomplish this.
The ability to get a listing of all non-compliant offenders is also gone. There is no similar functionality to accomplish this.
This is just terrible UI and UX design which is failing at the most basic of levels. I can get used to doing the same task if the update is simply a design change, but so far this is both a design and a loss of functionality change.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:40 am
Kind of like the “upgrade” of the Board of Elections site. Pro tip: If it ain’t broke, STOP SCREWING IT UP.
Comment by New Day Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:40 am
Agree with Rep Williams. Accessing the website on your phone, as we all do when we are literally under the dome, is even worse. It feels impossible to look up prior GAs on your phone.
Comment by The Young Gov Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:40 am
was the site redesigned internally? or by what company?
Comment by Amalia Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:41 am
i overheard some young people recently speaking about the new site, and how much better looking it is than the old site. Form over function not good in this situation.
Comment by muzzle of bees Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:45 am
“if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
Easy to say until the one guy maintaining the legacy system retires and no one else knows how to keep it running.
Comment by City Zen Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:45 am
Can you please put together one of your polls so maybe that can register like witness slips do?
Comment by Jon Walters Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:47 am
As a frequent user of the compiled statutes and various older records, I still struggle to navigate the new website. I thought it’d get easier after a few months, but I still always seems to end up in the wrong place and have to backtrack.
I assumed it was a “me” problem, but it seems like I am far from alone…
Comment by Space Cowboy Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:48 am
definitely harder to teach my Legislative Drafting & Gov’t Affairs class to these law students!
Comment by 21st State Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 10:50 am
It does look better.
That said making something prettier but less functional isn’t a good thing.
Why you couldn’t keep the same functionality and ease of the old site while dressing it up to look more modern is beyond me?
Agree with the comment it is not easy to navigate on your phone, which is how most of the Dome functions while in session.
Comment by Frida's Boss Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 11:03 am
Bring back the trusty old GA site, it was functional and easy to use ever since that design debuted in early 2003.
Hopefully we find out the staff members who thought that changing something that’s worked well since 2003 to something that is lousy to work with was a great idea. It would not surprise me if some of those staffers pushing for the change were even born in early 2003, or at the very least had started school by then.
Comment by Leatherneck Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 11:19 am
===Bring back the trusty old GA site===
They can’t because of issues with functionality and compatibility.
However, they should’ve updated that part and left the overall experience alone.
The site is awful. And it’s down way too often.
One or both chambers needs to hold a hearing and drag LIS in to testify.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 11:28 am
Cory Doctorow’s term “ens–tification” is relevant to the new GA website.
While he’s focused on the decay of commercial platforms, as a broad term it applies for describing something that worked well and served its purpose before being sacrificed for the sake of another goal, in this case aesthetic (though I’d dispute that a huge picture of the Capitol that takes up a strangely vast amount of homepage real estate is a particularly stunning visual).
Comment by Moe Berg Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 11:51 am
Most of the sites I have used previously working for the state of Illinois are poorly designed.
Comment by Dpiman Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 11:54 am
==Easy to say until the one guy maintaining the legacy system retires and no one else knows how to keep it running.==
True, but I doubt any of the old site was using COBOL or something. As Rich said, update functionality/compatability issues and leave the experience alone. When I’m facing an urgent deadline etc., I really don’t care if it’s pretty. I need access to the information I need.
As many of us have, I’ve done a lot of research over the years on other state’s legislative websites, and I was always impressed with how easy ILGA’s was to use. Now I’m just grateful that I’m not currently a daily user of ilga.gov.
Comment by Leslie K Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 1:12 pm
I thought I was the only one who hated it. Good to find some company. Reading statutes on there is very awkward (they’re laid out very badly). Finding old Bills and Public Acts is very difficult. I use the ILGA website on a daily basis and it’s such a struggle.
Comment by Ferris Bueller Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 2:10 pm
How about zero in on DoIT?
They’re all in on Adode Experience Manager sites for every single agency — except those agencies that have web developers.
Those state web dev are usually really, really good.
AEM is anything but.
Comment by Mr K Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 2:25 pm
===How about zero in on DoIT?===
That’s the executive branch.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 2:34 pm
To Moe Berg’s point if I’m using the site I’m either in the Capitol at that moment or someone who likely knows what it looks like. The huge photo of it feels unnecessary!
Comment by Jeremy Rosen Thursday, Oct 9, 25 @ 3:23 pm