I attended a focus group at the E Loft this morning for the Michigan Business One Stop program. They’ve developed a website focused on making small business in Michigan easier, and are working on completing it. From their brochure…
Michigan Business One Stop is a state-of-the-art online service that represents a whole new way of doing business with state government. Whether you’re starting, operating or changing a business, it’s the place to go to find what you need. It’s fast, streamlined and easy to use, with online service that operates 24/7, 365 days a year.
My first thought was that though it was designed better than Michigan’s main website, a few small tweaks would vastly improve the appearance.
- Since they’re using a maximum width of 800 pixels, they should center it instead of left aligning with lots of blank space on the right for larger screens
- Extend the top row and left column background colors/images for the entire screen, especially if not centering the content. (If they did the previous thing, they could worry just about the vertical column repeating, and have a static color or image for the entire page’s background.)
Anyway, very minor, but things that jump out to the detail obsessed.
My other thoughts during the presentation were that every time they talked about how the Governor wanted to “make business in Michigan easier” that maybe they should focus on less taxes rather than building a new resource (good as it may be) that requires additional funding which then probably requires additional taxes.
All that aside, if you’re a small business in Michigan, this looks like a great resource to take advantage of.
