City Runs
I’m very happy to announce the launch of City Runs. A website dedicated to running routes in cities around the UK. City Runs is has been launched with the support of Brooks who are organinsing a series of training runs in the featured cities early 2007.
The connection with Brooks has given a certain urgency to ensure the site is absolutely spot-on before launching as it will be getting included in the various magazine and other advertising Brooks are running to promote their City Runs program. And while this hasn’t been an issue, typically one of the features of the site has caused endless problems on one particular web browser (IE6 - typically!).
When building a website I always focus on accesability. A good looking site is crucial to provide visitors with a nice environment to use, but the design must never compromise the usability of the site. City Runs uses a few Java Script functions to add some nice dynamic functions to the pages. This includes the slide show at the top of some of the pages, the expanding content elements on the Cities pages the Google Maps, also on the Cities pages and the simple Search tool on the Events page. The crucial thing when using Java Script is remembering that not all users will be using it on their computers, and will the site still work if it’s disabled? So on the City Runs site, the Java Script gives some useful functionality to make navigating the content easier, but if a visitor doesn’t have it, the content is still completely available. Albeit missing a few whistles and bells.
Overall I’m very happy with the City Runs site. Both in its design and functionality. It’s a great free resource and I very much hope it will generate enough public interest to allow more Cities to be added and to feature more articles and references for runners through the UK
