By Mike Parker | 21 December 2011 | Cedar Park Citizen

Councilman Don Tracy said he is a believer in first impressions. And in today’s society where an initial step is to search online, that first impression can many times mean a website.

That assertion has led the city to approve an overhaul of its current website, an endeavor that has brought multiple stakeholders to the table in guiding the project.

City Media and Communications Manager Jennie Huerta said the city website makeover has been on her to-do list since her first day on the job in December 2010. Since its inception, she has spearheaded a project that involves the City Council, a special-formed committee and the community. “This has been a massive undertaking so far,” Huerta said.

The current city website offers a variety of resources for local residents, businesses or anyone with interest in the city. But city staff, including City Economic Development Specialist Larry Holt, feel its design and usability is no longer suitable for a city of this size and stature. “I sometimes joke it makes up for being poorly organized by being slow,” he said. “There’s definitely a feeling from inside and outside suggesting that we do a complete overhaul.”

The committee created by the City Council to overlook the project sent out a request for proposals, which garnered responses from several website design companies. Vision Internet, based in Sacramento, Calif., eventually beat out its competitors. Tracy, who is a member of the committee, said Vision Internet’s portfolio coupled with a strong presentation to the committee helped cement their recommendation to the Council to choose the company. “They very clearly have a tremendous amount of experience working with government entities,” Tracy said.

Huerta said Vision Internet’s cost proposal landed lower than most other proposals at $51,145. Some of the higher proposals came in as much as $100,000. “In comparison to others, it was a really great product for the price,” she said.

With VI in place, the committee delved into planning for the new website. Usability and aesthetic qualities are both two huge factors in designing the new site, Tracy said. “It has to be attractive from an aesthetic standpoint,” he said, “And it has to reflect the kind of city we have.”

Having information accessible by one or two clicks of the mouse is one of many goals set by the committee, which continues to work with VI in designing the new website. Holt said the committee must take into account two types of visitors: those who live in the area and those who do not. Many location consultants for businesses do research online before ever visiting a city, he said. But that type of interaction is just as important toward local residents. “That interaction has become rather key, how professional and easy it is,” he said.

Huerta said better interaction means fewer web pages to navigate and less of a burden on city staff, which ultimately means saved time on both sides. “The website is most often a citizen’s, visitor’s or business’s first impression of what the city has to offer. But it also provides a lot of information to people. And I think the easier it is to use and navigate, that it certainly helps my job in communicating information to the public,” she said.

Committee member Elijah May said the website should make it easier to do anything from paying a water bill to finding out information on a Council meeting. “Information in general … should not be buried,” he said. “People are not terribly patient when it comes to the Internet. If they go there, and they don’t get what they need, they’re going to pick up the phone and call somebody.”

The city has invited stakeholders to the website, from local residents to businesses with ties to the area, to fill out an online survey. May said getting those ideas and feedback from the community will help steer the website redesign. “It’s really important that you are reaching out to the community and you are getting the pulse of the community,” May said.

Survey questions include asking for a list of adjectives and nouns describing the city, listing appropriate imagery for the website and choosing between different design elements like “traditional” or “modern/contemporary.” After Dec. 30, when the city ends the survey, May said the committee has the tricky task of taking all of the different opinions from the survey and moving with a design that makes sense from a design standpoint. “The absolute reality is that this is a highly subjective thing,” he said. “There’s functionality, and there’s aesthetics. And those aesthetics are highly subjective. At the end of the day, you can’t come up with this Frankenstein thing.”

Huerta said residents so far have made it clear they want a clean, easy-to-use website. “We have a very educated city and we know we have a lot of people here who work in the high-tech industry and have great expectations for our website to be all that it can be,” she said.

Tracy said the end result should be a website that reflects the family-oriented, award-winning city it has been built to showcase. “The website is the tip of the spear of the communications process for the city,” he said. “The website represents us. It’s the face of us.”

Link to Original:  http://cedarparkcitizen.com/2011/12/21/staff-committee-in-midst-of-city-website-overhaul/