Local leisure centre websites 🤯

[TwinklyTornadoBear]

Why, for the love of god, are local leisure centre websites so catastrophically shite? We’ve lived near three different ones now, and each time it feels like a competition to see who can design the most user unfriendly site. They’d get a slicker result if they outsourced it to a bunch of 12yr olds.

Want to see the timetable? Just scroll past the Ts & Cs, GDPR statement, parking policy, contact info, and probably the town’s coat of arms, right down at the very bottom. Because obviously that’s the most logical place to hide it.

They’ve got three completely separate systems depending on what you’re doing. Booking a session - use the main site. Want to see lessons, go to Course Hub. And don’t forget the HomePortal which you occasionally end up in, and looks the same as everywhere else, but is just designed to send you on a wild goose chase. You also get to re-select your “home” centre from a randomised drop-down list every single time. Maybe Exeter, tomorrow Dundee - does your local
pool even exist anymore?

Swimming lessons are a whole new level of joy. First you’ve got to find where to book them on the site (which should earn you a Duke of Edinburgh badge in orienteering). Then you can add your child to a waiting list… except the staff say the waiting list doesn’t exist. Not to worry, just keep refreshing at 6 a.m. every morning like it’s Glastonbury tickets.

All the while you’re tripping over lengthy statements about their “mission and values.” I don’t care if your mission is world peace and your values are kindness, courage and turmeric smoothies - I just want to know when the pool is open, how much it costs, and whether I can book a gym session without studying computer programming. 🤯

Is this just a local curse, or are leisure centres nationwide engaged in some secret pact to make their websites as unusable as humanly possible?

And woe betide trying to book something involving children/ multiple users 🤯

Wait! You get a time table and opening hours on yours?!
Your council have really made the extra effort and you should be grateful because at least you know what you are working towards!

Oh God, the horror! If I want to take my 2 DC swimming I have to login as each of us and book individually. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?!

I feel like I should retrain in web design and redo all the leisure centres websites in the country. I'd be a millionaire. And a hero.

No you’re not being unreasonable. I also miss just being able to just turn up somewhere. It’s such a massive pain in the arse and another administrative hurdle to just do any activity these days. Sessions for everything start the same time and so everyone queues to give the same info when you arrive as you’ve just had to give online.

School websites are a similar nightmare. I want to know the term times, the contact details and I don’t want to go via some weird parent portal. Same with values and missions and stupid videos.

It would take you 20 billions years to get through council procurement for each individual council 🤣🤣

@HavingaYchromosomeisntanexcuse not a chance. its actually quite hard to make websites that bad, so there is no chance they are interested in improvements (ux designer here)

YANBU.
Our local council pool has always been a bit awkward to find the swim timetable but when I tried to look recently they've changed to whole website and somehow managed to make it even worse!

I've been wanting to get an adult and child membership to our local gym/swim place but I can't face the hassle of navigating the Better website.

My young teen wants to go to the gym and I want to start going to the gym too. "Great, we can go together. I'll buy a membership for us both" - no, apparently it's not that simple!

There are like 20 different memberships, discount cards, "pay £5" with no info on what for, off peak, peak, multi-gyms, etc. And quite a few of the different membership options overlap - which one do you choose? The cheaper one? But what if that's the wrong one? There's no clear info on any of it. Oh and out of all million options, there doesn't seem to be any "adult and child" or "family membership" options.

Also, no info on what times teens can use the main gym or whether they have a teen only gym area. Can a mum and teen daughter go in the main gym together? What about the yoga classes? Is there an age restriction on them?

I was going to go in person and ask but seeing other people's experiences at Better gyms where they've just been signposted to the shitty website has put me off.

It really shouldn't be this difficult.

And swimming is just a step too far for me right now. I can't deal with trying to figure that out too!

I could do it pro bono. As a kindness to humanity.

Does anyone remember The Brittas Empire? All of these examples definitely sound like something Mr Brittas would implement for his leisure centre. In fact, they're exactly like the policies he had in place, albeit he was working with paper forms!

Totally agree, they’re bloody awful. And can I ever find a phone number to actually talk to someone???

Mine likes you to phone them to book a slot to go swimming.

No online calendar to do so.

Unbelievable.

That might actually be a blessing considering how Kafkaesque so many of the online booking systems are...

This thread has really made me laugh. How ridiculous that so many people are giving up trying to book a physical activity & pay money for it.

It’s a travesty. Especially as everyone here is tech savvy. If we can’t get anywhere then god help everyone else.

I previously used People for Places (or whatever it’s called). It wasn’t too bad once you were in the swing of it but getting my 16yo a membership was insanely difficult involving phone calls, visits, password resets and so on.

Im now with Everyone Active. It’s fine but to book an activity for next Tuesday I have to be on the app refreshing wildly at 10pm to get a space. Also have to use 4g not WiFi for some reason. It often glitches, throws you out and then you have to hope for a waiting list space to become available. Mad.

Oh my you are so right.

Their design is terrible and so not user friendly, a nightmare to navigate!

Takes me so much brainwork and so many attempts to even try and book swimming lessons!!

God yes, ours defaults to the main council website even if you google “ X town leisure centre swimming times” etc. So you want to book swimming and need to find it amongst bin days, what to do if you become homeless and how to make a complaint. I just want to know if I can go swimming! And every so often it pops you back to the home page so you have to find it all over again.

Yes, absolutely shite.

I live in Glasgow and even trying to find out a single thing about swimming lessons was a wild goose chase. We ended up going to a neighbouring LA with a slightly less bad website and contact info. Trying to find summer sport info, forget it. Accurate library opening hours? If you're lucky. Actual things happening at the library? Only if you're fortunate to have a specific library.

Same thing with the portals. How many effing portals do I need here?

100% agree. I used to dread having to book anything at our east London leisure centres which were managed by Better.

My LA went over to online booking only for taking stuff to the recycling center during covid, and have kept the system (to prevent queuing up on the road they say). It's an awkward system, makes you jump through so many hoops trying to find the relevant booking form that you have to be quite civic minded to slog through it, rather than just dump your old telly in the woods. The last time I went there about 30 cars were booked into the same half hour time slot - and a major operation was taking place inside the center moving the giant skips. We were all kept queuing on the road for nearly an hour - doh!