Posted by Annelise Connell, a resident of the Portola Valley: Woodside Highlands neighborhood, on Mar 2, 2009 at 3:15 am

As an Internet consultant since the Internet was born, I can state with authority that the mark of a good website is if it answers my question in 8 seconds or less.

The navigation on the new Portola Valley therefore get's an "A" from me.

However, as attractive as the new pages are, the main navigation bar takes up 75% of the home page - and the interior pages nav bar take up 50%.

This means I have to scroll and click a lot.

For those of us with repetitive stress computer injuries, we need fewer clicks and less scrolling.

People are accustomed to searching an alphabetical list. I'm sure much though went into the order the drop-down boxes were listed (most searched for at the top), but most people can scan an alphabetical list more quickly.

One last question: where is the site map ? There is so much on this site, that I may never find it if I have to peek into all the drop down menus - and I may not pick the right keywords to search on. There are three way people like to navigate a website 1) menus 2) search 3) sitemap.

So, all in all, I give it a B+