Monday, February 17, 2014

Woodstock PD website - hard to use

Last week the Woodstock Police Department (WPD) published an updated flier about Beth Bentley, who has been missing since May 2010. They published it on February 12, which would have been Beth's 45th birthday. After hearing about the flier, I wrote about it and took the Woodstock PD to task for not publishing it on their website.

Today I found it. Now, tell me; would you have found it?

The PD's webpage of information useful to residents is buried well down in the City's website. Here's how you find it:

Go to www.woodstockil.gov
Hover over "City Departments"
Hover over "Police"
Click on "Press Releases / Crime Alerts"

Once you are there, you'll see five items:
1. the old Beth Bentley flier from 11/11/10
2. 1/14/14 announcement of an AARP Driver Safety class
3. 2/20/14 a sex offender arrest
4. 1/27/14 a Panera Bread crime arrest
5. 1/27/14 an arrest photo for Item 4

That's it ... unless you happen to look down to the lower right and spot "See all items".

What do you think, when you see "See all items"? Those would be older items; right? Surely, the newest items would be those on the main page. Right?

OK, so click on "See all items". What shows up?

The first five items PLUS four more:
6. 2/4/14 February Traffic Initiative (a fancy word for motorists to be targeted this month);
7. 2/10/14 a criminal sexual assault arrest
8. 2/10/14 an announcement about WPD Deputy CHief [sic] Lieb
9. 2/12/14 the new Beth Bentley flier

Why aren't the newest and most important items on the first page you see?

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