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Before
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After
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Key Goals:
- Update the website (which also serves as
an Internet portal for the residents to connect to internet) with
a more welcoming color scheme and graphics, as well as a better
navigation structure
- Add needed functionality by improving the
calendar of events and developing an application that will allow
city officials to advise residents in the event of an emergency.
- Redesign the site such that maintenance and updating can be done by city employees, thus keeping maintenance costs down and allowing them to add content in a flash with no HTML knowledge.
Solutions:
In response to the municipality needs, our first step was to
create a new architecture and navigation structure for the site content - former
website design had frames, which was not conducive to a good user experience
and not search engine friendly.
We redesigned the look of the site by adding a flash menu and
a brighter color scheme with appealing graphics. The home page graphics rotate
randomly giving the site a fresh look and feel.
Second, we have added an editable flash calendar of events
that the municipality can update as needed and that is user friendly.
Third, to improve communication with residents in the event
of an emergency, we have incorporated a scrolling flash banner with editable
text that can be launched remotely by city officials. And, as a permanent feature,
we have added a self updating banner that displays terror alert levels. Also
in an effort to make the site friendlier and more usable by the citizens, a weather
banner has been added to the homepage and recreation related pages.
Forth, addressing the issue of low cost maintenance and being
able to add content based upon immediate need, we have designed the website to
be compatible with Macromedia Contribute software, which allows authorized users
to publish content to the website with no web design training, thus empowering
the content providers to create and add more content to give the site a timely,
fresher appearance.
To help increase visibility of the site on search engines,
we did a search engine optimization and submission - while correcting erroneous
information already in dozens of search engines from previous attempts by
other companies at advertising the site.
In the end the site was launched
on the projected date and the transition between the old and new site
was smooth, all this within a projected budget with no overruns.
