Vancouver.ca website = 3 million dollars

[Eff-1]

Consider this project was started by the previous council, which would be anytime from 2008 to 2011. Now we're in 2012. So that's about 4 years. But let's say 3 years to be conservative.

$3 million over 3 - 4 years, when you consider the following:

Research
Consultants
Suppliers
Internal staff
Building a new CMS
Developing the site navigation/wireframes (that would be a massive undertaking in itself)
Rehauling every single page (this is a HUGE website)
Usability testing
And most importantly, government bureaucracy which unfortunately always makes things unbearably inefficient, but will never go away in our lifetimes.

So $1 million per year seems about right to me. It's not that bad. Remember, this is a seriously major website, not a brochure for your dad's bakery.

Side rant: It's always bothers me a little when media trolls the public by reporting on government spending in order to get easy reaction from an audience who often have no context. And then you wonder why nobody ever wants to work in government? If people knew and/or considered how much the private sector spends on things, then they might see that government spending is not always out of line with the rest of the world (except for the inevitable inefficiency factor due to bureaucracy).

[Harvey Specter]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

Consider this project was started by the previous council, which would be anytime from 2008 to 2011. Now we're in 2012. So that's about 4 years. But let's say 3 years to be conservative.

$3 million over 3 - 4 years, when you consider the following:

Research
Consultants
Suppliers
Internal staff
Building a new CMS
Developing the site navigation/wireframes (that would be a massive undertaking in itself)
Rehauling every single page (this is a HUGE website)
Usability testing
And most importantly, government bureaucracy which unfortunately always makes things unbearably inefficient, but will never go away in our lifetimes.

So $1 million per year seems about right to me. It's not that bad. Remember, this is a seriously major website, not a brochure for your dad's bakery.

Side rant: It's always bothers me a little when media trolls the public by reporting on government spending in order to get easy reaction from an audience who often have no context. And then you wonder why nobody ever wants to work in government? If people knew and/or considered how much the private sector spends on things, then they might see that government spending is not always out of line with the rest of the world (except for the inevitable inefficiency factor due to bureaucracy).

+1.

My first job was with an investment firm and they would blow ridiculously amount of money on employee perks when the firm itself was in the red and clients were losing money, if gov't did the same thing it would be headline news. Corporate spending is reckless as well.

[will068]

Originally Posted by Jah Dean

+1.

My first job was with an investment firm and they would blow ridiculously amount of money on employee perks when the firm itself was in the red and clients were losing money, if gov't did the same thing it would be headline news. Corporate spending is reckless as well.

Correction, spending by Financial Corporations are more reckless than firms that are not in the finance/investment/banking industry group.

[will068]

As long as the recipient of the money is headquartered somewhere in BC with 100% of it's employees being BC residents, I'm good with a extra spending.

[dinosaur]

Regardless if the money was justly dispersed over the last 3 years and they did not over pay for the services....was it necessary to spend the money to begin with? All the content is the same. The 3 million went to aesthetics, not function.

IMO, that 3 million could have been utilized somewhere else.

[belaud]

^This is why it costed 3 million.

How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell - The Oatmeal

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

Regardless if the money was justly dispersed over the last 3 years and they did not over pay for the services....was it necessary to spend the money to begin with? All the content is the same. The 3 million went to aesthetics, not function.

IMO, that 3 million could have been utilized somewhere else.

Do you have any background on large website development?
Are you familiar with the both the front-end and back-end of the old site and the new site?
A frequent user?

If not, then you've just been trolled by the media like everyone else.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like an asshole. But for all we know, the old site may have been failing over time due to lack of investment and upkeep. Technology is constantly changing. The demand from the public in terms of services provided online is always increasing. Websites need to keep up accordingly. It is a cost of doing business.

[Ronin]

A bunch of us on FB were talking about how the phone numbers are images...and the CSS file was created in 2007. Ground up?

And only real pros name classes with such creative and easily referenced things like "40817C78182C4DF6A38920F36FFA0369"

They didn't have to buy vancouver.ca off anyone, did they? If that's the case, then the cost becomes a bit less stupid.

[dinosaur]

Originally Posted by Eff-1

Do you have any background on large website development?
Are you familiar with the both the front-end and back-end of the old site and the new site?
A frequent user?

If not, then you've just been trolled by the media like everyone else.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like an asshole. But for all we know, the old site may have been failing over time due to lack of investment and upkeep. Technology is constantly changing. The demand from the public in terms of services provided online is always increasing. Websites need to keep up accordingly. It is a cost of doing business.

I already said I do not know a lot about website development, but was and still am a frequent user of the website. As a layperson, I see no difference...I am assuming that other frequent users are the same.

As I said, its just my opinion. I am not sure how I am being trolled by the media. I read the headline "City spends 3 million on new website". Seemed pretty factual to me. I am able to form my own opinions....I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

[dvst8]

Project like this does not and should not cost 3 million. Nuff said.

[winson604]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

I already said I do not know a lot about website development, but was and still am a frequent user of the website. As a layperson, I see no difference...I am assuming that other frequent users are the same.

As I said, its just my opinion. I am not sure how I am being trolled by the media. I read the headline "City spends 3 million on new website". Seemed pretty factual to me. I am able to form my own opinions....I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

I've been using the website on a daily basis for 3.5 years now and I can say with confidence that the new website is 10 times better and then some. The fact that they implemented google search and google maps onto the website is already a huge bonus. The old search option was a disgrace, 8 out of 10 times you try to search something simple such as "Street Vending" the first few pages of search results will be council reports and other documents on Street Vending. Any normal search should really have had the first search result with the main page for Street Vending plain and simple. I would often have to go to Google to search the website instead. The google maps integration is also awesome. Wanna know where all the parking meters are and how much they cost per/hr? The new website will pull up all that info onto google maps for you nicely.

There are plenty of other great things about the new website. They have laid out the website now based more on how people view the City where as the old one it was laid out how the City viewed itself. On the old website for example if you wanted to find the page for Traffic and Transporation you would have to know that it falls under Engineering > Traffic > Transporation etc. With the new site it's nicely laid out on the top so that it makes sense for you. A menu for Streets and Transporation, hover over it and it's everything related to that such as Parking, Biking, Driving etc. There's a section for Home Property & Development, hover over it and it's everything related to that such as Taxes, Garbage, Building Permits etc. No longer did you have to understand how the City Departments are separated. The list goes on and on actually but this is just my opinion.

[Amuse]

I can;t even get onto their website.

[winson604]

Not that TheProvince website matters but here's an article on the website.

What does a three million dollar website buy you?

It’s a question many in Vancouver were left asking after the city announced the price tag of the new and improved Home | City of Vancouver, which went live earlier this week.

“My jaw is on the floor!” tweeted Rebecca Bollwitt, who runs the popular Vancouver blog Miss 604. “$3 million isn’t a figure you see everyday for web development. Is it? If so, I’ve been charging too little.”

But according to JP Holecka, owner of the digital marketing agency Powershifter, the investment was needed given the age and complexity of Vancouver’s website and the many different functions it serves.

“Could they have saved money? Absolutely, but I think on average a site of that size would cost at least one to two million,” said Holecka, whose company has done projects for the Vancouver Canucks and TELUS, among others. “It’s a connection of many disparate systems.

“This isn’t a website so much as a large system of software, often many many systems, working together to pull in diverse sets of information from many places. There’s a machine behind there that’s must be built.”

According to the city of Vancouver, about half the cost over the three years of the project went toward hardware, software and customization of the site. Yellow Pencil, a local web design and development firm, received a contract worth $674,649 for a content management system.

The other half went toward the salaries for 20 staff and general planning for the relaunch, including the research study, holding consultations and focus groups, and training staff.

At the outset of the redesign, Bell Web Solutions did a comprehensive study of the city’s website, using 13 different scores to give it an overall grade of “E”, or “very poor”.

“The return on investment for this is probably a couple years, when you consider the effort of what it would take to keep and maintain the old system,” said Holecka, who pointed out Calgary’s relaunch of their website cost $3.2 million.

But he understands the anger taxpayers have.

“It makes for great sound bites and makes people pissed off on the air,” he said. “But people need to think about the context [of the price], and peel back the layers behind it.”

Read more: Independent expert: Vancouver's $3 million city website makeover value for money

[Ronin]

That's slightly better. $675k is a reasonable amount...but I still don't see $675k worth of work. We all know devs that could do the same work for much less.

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by winson604

“My jaw is on the floor!” tweeted Rebecca Bollwitt, who runs the popular Vancouver blog Miss 604. “$3 million isn’t a figure you see everyday for web development. Is it? If so, I’ve been charging too little.”

Yeah building a website from the ground up is slightly different than making a wordpress theme (or more likely, taking an existing one and changing the graphics and CSS)

[Geoc]

wtf at first it was 2mil for CMS and now it's 675k???

what is going on???

[drunkrussian]

i guess web real estate in vancouver is just as overpriced as physical real estate

[Noir]

It's amusing and partially offensive that majority of the people (as shown here) think that web design/ web development / web construction is nothing more than just highschool level HTML + CSS; or better yet the implication that it's nothing more than just picking templates from a web dev platform.

Furthermore, I find it funny that people are trivializing the scope of the website, and therefore the cost. This isn't your mom & pop shop website where all you need is a home + about us + contact page.


Anyways, will the website also have an e-commerce function + databasing? For people to pay their tickets and etc? If so, and no one has mentioned it yet, adding e-commerce in conjunction with database management alone could also excacerbate costs in addition to the security and privacy measures such elements from a website requires. Think about one of the biggest corporate companies with a huge e-commerce component like futureshop.ca or bestbuy.ca. I guarantee you they didn't cost just a measly 100K to develop but rather in the millions.

And to counter an earlier suggestion, sites with such a scope is rarely feasable to award to your random Comp Sci student.

[bcrdukes]

Some people like to think a website of such caliber is run off your typical WiFi Linksys/D-Link router and Pentium II server while Revscene is powered by a VTEC enhanced hamster. And yeah, transmission is free.

Originally Posted by winson604

I've been using the website on a daily basis for 3.5 years now...*edit edit edit*...No longer did you have to understand how the City Departments are separated. The list goes on and on actually but this is just my opinion.

This.

I quite frequently use the City of Vancouver's website to search for things like how to pay your taxes, garbage collection days, bylaws, construction zones, permit requests etc.

For the average citizen, it would be a real nightmare to navigate and like winson604 said, it was designed from the perspective of the City and its employees, not the average citizens.

The new website is much better in my opinion and caters to a much wider audience. Information should be easily accessible, not a "Where's Waldo" book.

[PornMaster]

Cost of designing the website about 700k ok they over paid a bit but not that much.

I am wondering where the 2.3 mil went

[belaud]

Refer to my previous post, not happy? do it again. not happy? do it again

Unlimited funds mean unlimited time

[Nightwalker]

Originally Posted by mr_chin

believe it or not if you have a website name that a big company wants, they'll pay you quite a lot for it.

i don't remember which site it was but some guy had the name of a game title and it was bought from for 2.5 million.

ie. - starcraft3.com. blizzard will probably buy that from whoever owns it when starcraft 3 is released. of course, no one knows how long it's gonna be so the owner will have to continue paying monthly for that domain.

it's an investment.

We had a company using a name that a massive conglomerate decided they were using. $500,000 later, they got it.

In that Starcraft example, it's more likely they'll sue the person who registered it if they won't give it up.

[Noir]

Originally Posted by PornMaster

Cost of designing the website about 700k ok they over paid a bit but not that much.

I am wondering where the 2.3 mil went

Designing is far far more different than develop. It's one thing to say, this widget goes here, or we'll have a widget there that does X function. It's another to actually build it, code it/program it, secure it, test it, debug it, etc.


Edit:

I forgot to add, although I don't imagine it will cost significantly, but i'm sure is another contributor to the overall cost is "content generation". Don't for one second think that all the images and writing used will be nothing more than stock photography or images stolen from google images; our their written content be blurbs generated by the programmers, designers, our your random city of Vancouver staff.

I'm sure they'll actually have their photographers and writers to aid in generating content.

[Tapioca]

The website is a public asset, so it's not something you can just fudge and throw together on the cheap. Whenever anything public is done, it usually goes through rounds of consultations and that's where the money goes.

I'm not afraid to say it, but $3 million is a pretty insignificant amount of money for something that will probably last several years.

[kristianhay]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

Regardless if the money was justly dispersed over the last 3 years and they did not over pay for the services....was it necessary to spend the money to begin with? All the content is the same. The 3 million went to aesthetics, not function.

IMO, that 3 million could have been utilized somewhere else.

3 million most certainly did not go to aesthetics.

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

A better way could be say hold a contest for computer sience stuidents and the best design wins and the winner can get a job with the Gov.

Save cost, enourage students to design something unique.

That's called spec work - exactly what the design industry is trying to get away from. NO!SPEC | To educate the public about speculative (spec) work

From what I hear, $2M was spent on content, research, dev, etc and $1M was spent on design. There are some major gains with the website, but also some losses. The new site is pretty beastly in terms of content and they stepped away from the org chart of the old website which is a gain. They information architecture is also A LOT better. Huge loss on the design though, looks like it would get dated very quickly. From my understanding, there were a couple parties involved in the different areas of content, design, dev, etc.