AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement

[FifeingEejit]

The website (in Phase 1) doesn't really do anything transactional though. It just pulls in some small bits of data from the old database.

From the August statement
"The significant cost overrun was mainly to do with the interfacing between the new site and existing databases"

If that's still the case then it's not the website itself that's caused the cost to be so high, though at that time it was said "Phase 1 had itself cost in excess of £90k" which I take to mean "between 90 and 100k" not £150k but of course that was in August.

Unsurprisingly it's the bit that could be described as "difficult" that's been pointed at for the cost at that time.


The website is submitting data to the legacy databases in terms of entering events, so not just reading data but that's not going to be particularly difficult in itself.

In terms of interfacing, what is the database?
I'm having great fun trying to connect to legacy Oracle 8i systems since Oracle stopped supporting it about 10 years ago; and the Oracle 10g databases are only just still connectible.

If it's some obscure system (I also note that rewriting some elements of the database is mentioned) that could also be an issue, did someone have to write a connector in order to get access to it from modern tooling?

[grams]

The website is submitting data to the legacy databases in terms of entering events, so not just reading data but that's not going to be particularly difficult in itself.

If you try to enter an event (or do anything else) you get redirected to AUKWeb.

If it's some obscure system (I also note that rewriting some elements of the database is mentioned) that could also be an issue, did someone have to write a connector in order to get access to it from modern tooling?

MySQL. For which there is a first-party .Net connector.

[wilkyboy]

My first reaction when I saw it was "Looks like something someone with the right knowledge could bash out with Wordpress in about a month" ... [blatant snip]

Exactly — my initial thought was "my 19-year-old son could've done this ... when he was 15".  Even with the database parts, I cannot see how we could've spent more than about £35k — £90-150k is taking the proverbial.

I had to back down at the AGM when I argued all this, simply because the decision by then had already been taken and approved.  However, I noted at the time that we really should have a clear strategy for limiting spend, and also for re-growing the cash-pile — something that has since been put into action by the board with the hike in fees.

[wilkyboy]

On Calendar Events under Advanced Search I can now filter out events that do not support PayPal - nice work!

Works in Permanent Events too; bonus, might encourage a few dinosaurs to join the information super highway.

You might consider being a little less judgemental.  Audax UK is a broad church and throwing insults at organisers because they have no confidence or interest in setting up digital payments is unwarranted.  I keep having to remind youngsters that we all managed to survive without TV, computers, t'Internet, mobile phones, etc., and we were just fine.  At least those members have stepped up and organised something — for that you should be grateful rather than condescending, don't you think?

[wilkyboy]

I never look at perms, but having read that and looked, I see 22 pages. I don't know it's 22 for me and 36 for someone else. Screen size?

I see 1 page with a filterable and pageable list of rides.
This is normal practice for displaying data on a web page.
What isn't normal practice is preventing people from selecting how many they want to see on each data page.

It may be 'normal practice', but it doesn't make it right — "doing what has always been done" has been proven highly unreliable as a metric of efficacy.  If someone had really thought about it, would it have been so bad to just list them all on one page by default?

To be clear, on the OLD site ALL the perms are visible with just ONE click from anywhere on the site, and then scrolling — you can find my events with ONE click and scroll down.

On the NEW site then the first click (which requires a mouse-over-then-move to get to) gives you Nephi Alti and Dave Atkinson's events, plus a few others' — lucky them, woohoo.  To get anyone else's events then users must scroll to the bottom and click Next as many times as required, scrolling up to see the list, and then back to the bottom to click Next again.

There is no sign-posting and absolutely no shortcutting.  AND, because in their lack of UX skills wisdom the developers chose to set up the pagination using POST instead of GET AJAX instead of page-reload using querystring (or even RESTful-type URL) then it's not even possible for me to provide deep-links to the page that contains my permanent events.

So, basically, to find any of my Cambridge events requires AT LEAST 22 clicks — yes, twenty-two clicks!! — and many scrolls, simply because I was born a W 

FFS — I have spent an enormous amount of time and effort building a presence in Cambridge for audax, and it has been trivialised into something stuffed down the back of the sofa in one fell swoop by people not thinking about real users and use cases.  Cheers for that — that helps 

[JonJo]

Tried to use the site in Firefox using a keyboard. Couldn't see where the focus was. It needs a proper accessibility audit.

This was mentioned during the Reunion Demo. It's on the List of ToDos, apparently.

Accessibility  is a fundamental and legislative requirement. It should have been in the minimal viable product. Bolting it on afterwards is so wrong in so many ways.

[djrikki]

Tried to use the site in Firefox using a keyboard. Couldn't see where the focus was. It needs a proper accessibility audit.

This was mentioned during the Reunion Demo. It's on the List of ToDos, apparently.

Accessibility  is a fundamental and legislative requirement. It should have been in the minimal viable product. Bolting it on afterwards is so wrong in so many ways.

On public sector websites that might be the case, but on private websites thats simply not true hence why many websites are not very accessible - it'll be on the to-do list somewhere I would imagine.

Presumably they will add ARIA markup at a later point, if they've used Bootstrap, Bulma or UIKit or a similar framework it will be straightforward to add that stuff in.

[JonJo]

On public sector websites that might be the case,

Oops. Yes, you're right. Forgot it's a private site. Stick by the rest of what I said though.

[FifeingEejit]

The website is submitting data to the legacy databases in terms of entering events, so not just reading data but that's not going to be particularly difficult in itself.

If you try to enter an event (or do anything else) you get redirected to AUKWeb.

If it's some obscure system (I also note that rewriting some elements of the database is mentioned) that could also be an issue, did someone have to write a connector in order to get access to it from modern tooling?

MySQL. For which there is a first-party .Net connector.

Is the Aukweb redirect the state Phase 1 will end at?

MySQL... other than    yeah that's not obscure at all which makes it off that writing a new events database was necessary, unless the original database design was horrific...

[Revellinho]

So to be clear, how long do you think this has taken? Do you really think it is value for money?

£150K seems like an exorbitant amount to me.

I have no idea how long it's taken to get to this point but from what I've read it seems it's taken a surprisingly long time which suggests there are other factors driving up the costs (such as requirements changes).

What I can say is that £150k is a piss in the ocean compared to the cost of the stuff I work on, but then that includes complex health care systems costing multi-millions of pounds, complex interfacing and nightmarish supplier relations.

It does seem a lot for "just a website" but it's quite clear that the AUK site is not "just a website" as it's doing a fair bit more than just showing content thrown up by someone typing into a WYSIWYG editor.
It also doesn't fit into the standard "eCommerce" template as you aren't just putting products from a list into a cart and then hitting buy either.

It's very definitely a bespoke solution with very specific requirements that are likely only found in the AUK requirements (although I suppose you could skin it and sell it to other Audax bodies...).
Without seeing the scope or requirements I could never say it's definitely £150k worth of work (or how long it would take me to do, or how much I'd charge if I had done it), but it does not particularly surprise me that it's cost this much based on what I've read and can see it doing.

We are not the only ones doing something like this.  Lots of volunteers, low entry fees, not for profit etc etc.  I wonder how our TT colleagues came up with their site?  I was not TT-ing when they migrated to it, so I don't know the costings.  I used it a lot last year and found it very easy/functional.  https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/

[FifeingEejit]

I never look at perms, but having read that and looked, I see 22 pages. I don't know it's 22 for me and 36 for someone else. Screen size?

I see 1 page with a filterable and pageable list of rides.
This is normal practice for displaying data on a web page.
What isn't normal practice is preventing people from selecting how many they want to see on each data page.

It may be 'normal practice', but it doesn't make it right — "doing what has always been done" has been proven highly unreliable as a metric of efficacy.  If someone had really thought about it, would it have been so bad to just list them all on one page by default?

The paging appears to issue a server call to get the list for each page which is usually done when there's lots of data necessitating the paging at a technical level.
I have in the past managed to overload a desktop web browser by loading too much into a datagrid similar to the one on the screen, that was considerably more that 535 rows though.
My instant thought for this design is "mobile devices", less memory, less screen and fall over sooner if you have too much in the DOM.
But as I said earlier I avoid Front end development if I can.
It could of course also be the only option in the framework they've used... Which leads to a rant about one of my former bosses picking a UI library with an arsehole of a developer who seemed to take great joy in slagging off anyone that was developing for IE and was generally unhelpful... guess what browser we're required to target...

The functionality of the permanents list filter seems to be considerably more restricted than the calendar events page too.
If the postcode search box was working or a drop down of organizers provided that would be a start to making it easier to find the various perms.

Although I just typed your surname into the Search Text and got a list of your perms.
9 keystrokes and a click
Typing Cambridge in there doesn't save any keystrokes but gives the same result


Plenty of JQuery showing up, going to have a dig around.

[FifeingEejit]

We are not the only ones doing something like this.  Lots of volunteers, low entry fees, not for profit etc etc.  I wonder how our TT colleagues came up with their site?  I was not TT-ing when they migrated to it, so I don't know the costings.  I used it a lot last year and found it very easy/functional.  https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/

They've paid someone: https://www.xncreations.com
Seems to be Bootstrap based

The VTTA appear to use the same website as an "oh that looks nice and right up our street" thing (according to the blurb) but the majority of their sites appear to be sports targeted.
Whether AUK could/should have contracted them rather than wots their face is a procurement thing of course...

One thing I did notice when having a shufty at their JavaScript is there are a lot of references to being directed to the "old system"; so it looks like they may have taken a clean break approach (possibly not even migrating data between the systems as it does mention that your user accounts differ between them)
which is always going to be a cheaper option.

[grams]

Is the Aukweb redirect the state Phase 1 will end at?

Yes.

Phase 2 is membership backend admin and may or may not also be an AUK merch store.

Phase 3 is mapping and DIYs or possibly something involving rationalising events. But also apparently (according to an email I got from Richard) everything else that's missing. And somehow has a cost estimate less than phase 2.

Phase 4 has a date and perhaps a budget according to the chairman's Awoowoo letter but absolutely no scope and is not mentioned in any other documents that I've spotted.

As you can see, it's a tightly run ship.

MySQL... other than    yeah that's not obscure at all which makes it off that writing a new events database was necessary, unless the original database design was horrific...

It's not clear if there is a new database or if it's just pulling everything live from AUKWeb...

[FifeingEejit]

Hm... that's a bit pish if the website isn't going to have the forms to submit to the entries system at an early stage.
It should be easy enough to interface them as it seems to just be a PHP page that takes in a form POST with the RideID and your details.

A Membership backend can be pretty significant or it could be a simple spreadsheet;
I've seen both the former for a >5000 member car club the later for an 80 member hiking club.

A merch store shouldn't be much work though, you can roll them out for little more than the cost of the licences and a few hours for the IT provider to install it, all the work to load the merch up into it is the job of the shopkeeper (set that one up for the >5000 member car club years ago)

So I can see how Phase 3 could be cheaper than Phase 2,

The August statement mentions that Francis has "rebuilt" a database which I take to mean either move it from one tech to another, or sit and cry at a terrible schema* and then redesign from scratch along with data migration.

"He also noted that another volunteer stalwart, Systems Delegate Francis Cooke, had offered to rebuild an important events database so that it would interface better with the new site. The Board was very happy to accept the offer"

The Audax.Uk framework appears to be Bootstrap based though the js files look quite different to those on the CTTA site.


* Although today I triedto convince my boss that there was nothing particularly wrong with the schema of one of our databases that performs badly,
the fact it's a got a single table 9Gb in size at its core isn't the problem

That it has no partitioning on a table nearly 5 times the size that Oracle give as a rule of thumb for needing partitioned and the indexes applied by blind monkeys don't line up with the queries that we execute on it being the primary problems.

He bought those but suggesting that since the data has a single relationship and is otherwise just a document didn't seem to be enough to convince him to go to the polical nightmare of suggesting we use a document database... :grump:

So crap schema isn't the only reason to greet over a poor DB.

[barakta]

Tried to use the site in Firefox using a keyboard. Couldn't see where the focus was. It needs a proper accessibility audit.

This was mentioned during the Reunion Demo. It's on the List of ToDos, apparently.

Accessibility  is a fundamental and legislative requirement. It should have been in the minimal viable product. Bolting it on afterwards is so wrong in so many ways.

On public sector websites that might be the case, but on private websites thats simply not true hence why many websites are not very accessible - it'll be on the to-do list somewhere I would imagine.

Presumably they will add ARIA markup at a later point, if they've used Bootstrap, Bulma or UIKit or a similar framework it will be straightforward to add that stuff in.

Actually the law does apply to private websites. AUK is providing a service under section 29 of the Equality Act which makes them liable to an anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments (including making their website accessible).

The only difference between public and private is section 149 the Public Sector Equality Duty which is hard for individuals to enforce as it needs judicial review.

I wonder if I should email AUK and say "Hi, why is your website not accessible, it's harder to add on than just build in from the start". TODO is TOOLATE...

[Bianchi Boy]

If the main problem is the old database structure then the first step should have beeen to design the new data base. I stated before that I cannot see anything hard in the data used by AUK. Now the GPS track and comparison software is a different matter.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

[frankly frankie]

So, basically, to find any of my Cambridge events requires AT LEAST 22 clicks — yes, twenty-two clicks!! — and many scrolls, simply because I was born a W 

FFS — I have spent an enormous amount of time and effort building a presence in Cambridge for audax, and it has been trivialised into something stuffed down the back of the sofa in one fell swoop by people not thinking about real users and use cases.  Cheers for that — that helps 

I'm the last person to want to be an apologist for the new site, but actually it can be done IN 2 clicks (and 1 scroll).  Yes two.  One to click (after a hover) on 'Permanent events'.  Two to click on 'Organiser'.  Scroll down.

Of course that doesn't much help organisers named 'Lewis' or 'Neville'.

Typing Cambridge in there doesn't save any keystrokes but gives the same result

You can get by (on either site) with just typing "Cam".

[trekker12]

Very little helps new(ish) riders looking for their first permanent and who don't know the organisers by name. Or one in a different region whilst on holiday perhaps and the local organisers are not known to them.

Yes you can go to the other website which is linked in the top of the page and find local perms but that is created by an individual and not by the club so relies on one person to maintain it and presumably pay for the website they own.

The old website could be searched by region, it seems short sighted to not be able to do this anymore especially as the information clearly exists as demonstrated by the other website.

Oh and the search function doesn't find the event number I found on the other website. I had to type the name of the event to get a result.

[j_a_m_e_s_]

So, basically, to find any of my Cambridge events requires AT LEAST 22 clicks — yes, twenty-two clicks!! — and many scrolls, simply because I was born a W 

FFS — I have spent an enormous amount of time and effort building a presence in Cambridge for audax, and it has been trivialised into something stuffed down the back of the sofa in one fell swoop by people not thinking about real users and use cases.  Cheers for that — that helps 

I'm the last person to want to be an apologist for the new site, but actually it can be done IN 2 clicks (and 1 scroll).  Yes two.  One to click (after a hover) on 'Permanent events'.  Two to click on 'Organiser'.  Scroll down.

Of course that doesn't much help organisers named 'Lewis' or 'Neville'.

That is far from obvious. I just spent 10minutes pondering what I missed, until I picked the iPad up in portrait and another option bar appeared. It is not there in landscape.

I don't know about on a phone,

[wilkyboy]

So, basically, to find any of my Cambridge events requires AT LEAST 22 clicks — yes, twenty-two clicks!! — and many scrolls, simply because I was born a W 

FFS — I have spent an enormous amount of time and effort building a presence in Cambridge for audax, and it has been trivialised into something stuffed down the back of the sofa in one fell swoop by people not thinking about real users and use cases.  Cheers for that — that helps 

I'm the last person to want to be an apologist for the new site, but actually it can be done IN 2 clicks (and 1 scroll).  Yes two.  One to click (after a hover) on 'Permanent events'.  Two to click on 'Organiser'.  Scroll down.

Of course that doesn't much help organisers named 'Lewis' or 'Neville'.

Typing Cambridge in there doesn't save any keystrokes but gives the same result

You can get by (on either site) with just typing "Cam".

Fair points, both, but that's only IF riders know what they're looking for.

For people just browsing — and I get a number of entries that way — then us late-alphabet organisers are nowhere, because users habitually don't click beyond the first page or two.

TBH, if you know you're looking for Cambridge Audax rides then you'll probably start on the website; I'm interested in reaching out to newcomers to riding in this area, and that's currently a major step backwards in the new system.

And another thing — on the old site, you could search by region, which I never realised, but someone pointed out, and that's a nice feature.  On the new site — nada, that feature is missing.  Thanks, again

[grams]

A Membership backend can be pretty significant or it could be a simple spreadsheet;
I've seen both the former for a >5000 member car club the later for an 80 member hiking club.

It's certainly not going to be the latter. I've just found this amazing document in which AUK pays £10,625 + VAT not to build anything but for a couple of people to have a brainstorm about what the membership system might look like*. Bearing in mind there's already a 20 page document detailing everything required and dividing it into user stories.

There's also another bill for £4,600 half of which is bug fixes for things that weren't built properly in the first place, and the rest is tiny changes.

This is a fucking racket.

(* In my universe this part of the work would be done over a cup of tea before we actually got on with building it...)

[Cudzoziemiec]

And another thing — on the old site, you could search by region, which I never realised, but someone pointed out, and that's a nice feature.  On the new site — nada, that feature is missing.  Thanks, again

A map showing locations of event starts is more useful, since it allows you to see for yourself whatever region you fancy. Or at least it would be if it were sortable by distance, date, perm v calendar, etc.

[mattc]

So to be clear, how long do you think this has taken? Do you really think it is value for money?

£150K seems like an exorbitant amount to me.

You've had since August to add your comments about the VFM of the work done: http://forum.audax.uk/index.php?topic=1564.225 (or on a thread near this one)

Just posting that "It's a bit crap and expensive" was never very helpful, even less so 3 months down the line.

Of course if you contributed to the work in getting this project off the ground, you have a little more right to make unhelpful complaints (but not much more ... )

[bairn again]

So many IT experts who could have done this so much better.  If only AUK had known. 

[frankly frankie]

And another thing — on the old site, you could search by region, which I never realised, but someone pointed out, and that's a nice feature.  On the new site — nada, that feature is missing.  Thanks, again

A map showing locations of event starts is more useful, since it allows you to see for yourself whatever region you fancy. Or at least it would be if it were sortable by distance, date, perm v calendar, etc.

Once again, that map exists and has done for several years (although it is currently a bit dysfunctional due to Google Maps clamping down and the impending New Web making that not worth fixing) complete with filters and (if you are logged in) "near me".  'OK' the warning notice and it still works - just a bit dark!
http://www.aukweb.net/events/map/
There's an equivalent one for Permanents but Phil's map is better here, due to having better data (for now) to chew on.