The new force website (V5)

The site Homepage

The focus of the design is where do you want to go and lets get you there as quickly as possible.

This link takes you to the new homepage of the Force website which will re-size to any device so please test on your mobile and tablet and let me know how it behaves! karen.gandy@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk

The design is throwing up a few questions which I would like your thoughts on:

1. Do we need a SM (social media) link within the top strip? (I have placed a generic link rather than the logo links. Logo links to our Force accounts can be found at the bottom of the page.) The top SM link will go to a page of links to all our social media accounts including individual officers.
2. Should the link to Local policing be called Local to you / Your community / Your team? For the moment I've gone for Local to you because we have many holiday makers and students and so that seems to fit better.
3. LEICESTER has had their site redesigned and I like it, it is very gov.uk site like, very clean. They also have a campaign banner after their header but I'm of the opinion it is better to get people to where they need to be rather than distract them. Leicester also has a separate mobile site which doesn't display the banner at all. 
4. I like the V5 six big navigation buttons that the new design has, but I may need to still play with the styling. 
5. News section should this even be on the homepage? If it should, should it be underneath the six buttons which could then have more room. The news area would then also have more room and could then display other news and appeals like missing people? This would however make load times longer and the site when viewed on a mobile, the page very long. At the moment I have decided against adding more information to this page and in-fact I have removed the form and the address details, as one commentator suggested a little while ago.

What do you think a Police homepage should display and link to?

I would be interested in your thoughts so please leave a comment or drop me an email.