It looks better so far. It would be nice if RSS feeds were added to several other important pages, such as the Board Meetings agenda/minutes page, and the Correspondence page. Even better would be a “changes” page with a RSS feed when *any* change is made (i.e. new content added), so we can be apprised of new documents.

Website redesign is one of those things that everyone thinks should be easy until they try and do it. Kind of like administering the DNS and IP systems : )

We’ve gone from a city where you have to be a local to get from A to B to one where the street signs make sense and the map is readable. Hooray!

Quick comments:

The “have a registrar problem” thing is kind of floating out there on the right.

It might be cool to have a participation by stakeholder group link, like, I am a business, organisation, goverment, user group, how can I participate?

under “Structure” the organogram makes it look like the board is Colonel Custer at the little big horn, surrounded by committees.

under the staff section, I wonder if it would be more user-friendly to arrange staff by department and then alphabetically.

Paul – thanks for kicking off this conversation.

By way of introduction, I’m Marc Salvatierra and I serve as Web Content Developer here at ICANN.

Most of the feedback received on the site redesign so far has been positive. We took great pains to leave URL paths untouched or to redirect appropriately so that existing bookmarks would continue functioning. There is also a link in place that leads to the previous version of the homepage for those who need time to adjust.

I’ve now heard from a few Safari users who raised issues that were known to us prior to launch. Testing had shown that Safari would be problematic in the way it presents layout and color. Work is in progress to address these items. Any other Safari users are invited to provide feedback.

IE 6 (Internet Explorer 6) did present some layout problems during the design process but these were patched prior to rollout.

That said, any additional feedback or problem reports are appreciated. Please send details to marc.salvatierra@icann.org with the subject WEBSITE in CAPS.

Thanks

Off topic, but right now you guys are patting yourselves on the back for a new website design while thousands of us registerfly suckers don’y know for sure if we will even HAVE a website in a few days.

ICANN told me they contacted regfly 5 days ago, and to wait 5 days. I did.

I contacted ICANN again today and guess what I was told? Yep, wait 5 more days. Cookie cutter emails just like regfly. This is the biggest joke I have ever seen, and it’s not very funny at all.

Question:

If ICANN is forced to do a bulk transfer with bogus/incomplete registerfly data, it would only affect domains that registerfly is the REGISTRAR OF RECORD. Correct?

ie: If someones domain has been moved to a different registrar of record for whatever reason, it won’t be included in the bulk I assume.

In my situation I was able to transfer out all except 1 domain (not popular) that they lost. The one that they did lose, I was lucky to regain via a backorder.

Thank You.

TBH I dislike the new look. The color scheme (citric blues) is something that leaves little to be desired. Personally, as a web designer I feel you’re website needs to be much more informative and have a much more “usable” interface. Currently it looks like it was designed for rocket scientists.

Hi Rick — the aesthetic was a finalization consideration, put in place with the knowledge that future color changes are easily accomplished in our stylesheet.

Usability and accessibility to information were much larger concerns. And a slick interface is never a guarantee that users can quickly find what they are looking for.

I encourage you to address any particular items that you feel can be made more usable on the interface.

Likewise, is there specific content or some way of presenting it that you feel would make the site more informative? We receive many requests for content development and I’d be happy to add yours to the (re)mix.

With input from users like yourself, understanding ICANN and its work need not be rocket science.

I respect that the Web site redesign may have been *intended* to make the information more accessible. But I find it harder to use, mainly becuase it’s hard to know how particular information will be ategorized. And some of the most basic information is still absent.

For example, ICANN is currently conducting several “public consultations” and claims to be “seeking” public comments. You can find these mentioned under News -> Announcements:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-30mar07.htm

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-4-29mar07.htm

But these issues, on whihc ICAMM is “seeking” public input, aren’t listed under “Current Issues” or on the timeline under “Curreent Processes” or on the “Public Participation Site”.

How are people supposed to find these?

The “Processes and Current Workload” page includes no contact information and incomplete schedule and meeting information.

A major improvement would be to have a list of all pending proposals and open requests for comments, and a master calendar that lists all ICANN subsidiary bodies (committees of the Board of Directors, task forces, organizations to which ICANN has delegated decision-making authority, etc.), with for each such body:

1. a point of contact (person, e-mail address, etc.) for requests under the transparency Bylaw for documents, records, etc. related to that body (just as most government transparency laws require each public body to designate a freedom of information officer)

and

2. a schedule of all meetings of those bodies, with information on how interested persons can exercise their rights under the transparency Bylaw to observe, audit, and/or participate in each meeting.

I would be happy to work with you on this.

Thanks for your response, Keiren. I don;t think you are responsible for the longstanding problem.

You say, “You’re not right about there being no contact details wrt the processes though. For example, all the GNSO processes are held on one page and have a “more details” link that provide full details of the process along with contact details.”

That may be true with respect to the GNSO processes — I haven’t been involved in those, and don’t know — but it’s not tru for many (most?) other ICANN bodies.

For example, suppose I want to know about Board committees. Not only is there no posted schedule of meetings for any of the Board commitees, but there are no posted contacts either for information about their meetings, or for requests for related documents or records.

Or suppose I want to find out about the current public consultation related to the “Independent Review of ICANN’s Accountability and Transparency”. Suppose I want to request copies of the contract(s) between ICANN and the “independent” reviewers, and/or the records of ICANN’s meeting(s) and communications with the reviewers. To whom should I make that request, and at what URL would I find that information? There is a designated address for comments on the report, but I can find no designated point of contact for requests for documents, records, or meeting info. This is typical of most ICANN bodies and decision-making processes.

There isn’t even a posted contact address or person for information regarding the Board as a whole, for communication with Board members, or for requests for records, documents, or meeting information for the Board. (Some Board members’ individual addresses are posted, but not all.)

Designated points of contact for each ICANN body for requests for documents, records, and meeting access information and a posted calendar of meeting notices, and a designated overall point of contact for requests that aren’t clearly related to a single body or overlap multiple bodies, are essential if ICANN’s transparecny Bylaw is to be given meaning.

I respect that (1) not *all* information can or should necessarily be posted on the Web site, at least in the absence of a specific request for it, and (2) you are working on improvements to the Web site that will take time and resources. But those are reasons why it is especially important in the meantime to have clearly designated points of contact for information that isn’t (yet) on the Web site.

Until such time as procedures can be put in place requiring all ICANN bodies to designate transparency contacts, and establishing procedures to ensure compliance by them with the transparency Bylaw (including its “maximum extent feasible” clause), a first simple step would be to publicly identify the overall point of contact for requests under the transparency Bylaw. That requires just one static page on the Web site, presumably linked from the home page and the press and public participation pages. Once the designation is decided (if it hasn’t been already), it should be pretty simple and quick to implement on the Web site. Given your job title, I guess that contact and the person responsible for putting those procedures in place and ensuring compliance would be you, Keiren. But I don’t want to presume, and there’s still nothing I can find on the Web site defining your role or the scope of your responsibilities or authority.

My specific suggestions as to what implementation of the treansparency Bylaw might entail are still the same as those I made when public input was last requested:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/principles-comments/msg00011.html

http://forum.icann.org/lists/stratplan-draft-comments/msg00000.html

So far as I can tell, none of those have been implemented, and I can find no public record of them even being considered, although they were the only non-spam substantive suggestions in that forum, and no public objection was made to them:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/stratplan-2007/msg00011.htm

Apparently some others find the Web site improved. I don’t find it more useful to me. And if it takes a lot of time and staff resources to make chnages like those you’ve been making to the Web site, I would rather you prioritize the transparency tasks described above, and in my previous comments as linked.

Best regards,

Edward Hasbrouck

Thanks, Kieren. I’ve followed up the unanswered questions by e-mail, as you requested.

You mean Word?

Kieren

Because we haven’t installed a machine translation yet (I am experimenting on my persona blog to see if it is useful), and because ICANN has still to produce a solid translation system, but it is working on it.

There are some posts specifically covering Spanish issues however, and you can find them at: http://blog.icann.org/?cat=14

Kieren

In what way, precisely?

Kieren

Hi, you guys are doing a wonderful job and i will like to be a memeber. Who is the Africa/Nigeria ICANN’s regional manager?