Municipal Websites

[UrbanWaterloo]

City of Kitchener Website Redesign
http://www.kitchener.ca/new_website.html

New website coming soon!

We are very pleased to report that work is nearing completion on a completely redesigned website that will be easier to access city information and services.

The design of the new website is based on what customers have told us they want. It is the product of months of research and analysis into industry standards and municipal best practices. Content on the new website will be easier to find and written in language that is easy to understand – we’ll try and keep the acronyms to a minimum.

We’re hoping to launch the redesigned website in August, but in the meantime here is a sneak peek at the look and feel of the front and interior pages.

Here is a peek at our new home page


Here is a peek at one of our internal pages



The redesigned website focused on the four priorities the public has told us they want us to spend our time fixing. The new website will include:

Priority #1: Navigation

• A detailed site map (or “table of contents”) that lists every page on the website and is designed to be intuitive to the average user – making it easier to find information.
• An A to Z listing of major city programs and services that links users directly to the information they are looking for on the site.
• Metadata on every page, image and file to help ensure our content has a better chance of appearing near the top of a search-engine list (eg. Google or Yahoo).

Priority #2: Look and Feel

• Large photographs found throughout the website that showcase the entire community (over 90% of the pictures are from Kitchener or the surrounding region).
• A greater balance between text, photos and videos throughout the website – with the use of flash technology in some key areas of the site.
• Several photo galleries with rotating images broken into themes like “Parks, Trails and Natural Areas”, “Arts and Culture,” and “Sports and Recreation.”

Priority #3: Addition of Interactive Features

• Automatic translation into 10 languages using Google translate. While this software isn’t perfect, it is our best effort to provide residents and visitors who speak different languages with some level of translation.
• An online calendar where members of the public can submit their events for possible inclusion on the website – and where events are automatically mapped onto Google to help people find where they’re going.
• Printer-friendly and mobile-friendly versions of the website.
• Share functionality so users can share our website content with friends through things like email, Facebook and Twitter.

Priority #4: Content Management

• We have totally rewritten almost every page on the website and cut down the number of pages significantly to simplify navigation and eliminate old and unnecessary content.
• Behind the scenes, we’re implementing our first-ever comprehensive content management strategy for the website and will have over 100 staff updating content daily.
• We have dedicated more staff resources to managing content on the city’s website and on our social media channels so that we can post information quickly and accurately.

If you’ve got any questions or suggestions, please contact Project Manager Michael May (Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing) at michael.may@kitchener.ca

[smably]

Visually, I'd say it looks a major improvement.

This part worries me a bit, though:

A greater balance between text, photos and videos throughout the website – with the use of flash technology in some key areas of the site.

Aaaand...I hope it's mobile-friendly.

[SeekForth]

Aaaand...I hope it's mobile-friendly.

According to Priority #3 - Printer-friendly and mobile-friendly versions of the website.

Whether or not that will be true remains to be seen.

[Duke-of-Waterloo]

Looks very similar to the City of Waterloo's website in terms of layout, which was redesigned last year.

Now if there's any municipality that needs to redesign their website, it's North Dumfries.

[Spokes]

Looks great! As long as the "use-ability" isn't sacrificed for aesthetics then Im happy.

[Ktown4ever]

Looks very similar to the City of Waterloo's website in terms of layout, which was redesigned last year.

Now if there's any municipality that needs to redesign their website, it's North Dumfries.

I think the Wellesley website 'takes the cake': http://www.township.wellesley.on.ca/

[Urbanomicon]

I'll reserve my judgement until I see it. But in general I hate flash sites. Visually it is a huge improvement though.

[Spokes]

I wonder if they'll have a non flash version too?

[taylortbb]

It's not an all-flash website. Through a company I do work for I almost bid on this website redesign, and I remember some of the specs from the RFP. There's no way you could meet them with all-flash website. All I take that to mean is that they've animated a few banners.

[DKsan]

Thank the heavens. The Kitchener website is probably one of the ugliest municipal sites I've ever laid my eyes on (well, except for the above two examples).

Oh Flash. I think most people have a love-hate relationship with it.

[Spokes]

The website redesign has been launched!!

And after a few minutes of playing around and getting to know where things are, my initial reaction is that I like it!

Check it out... www.kitchener.ca

[mpd618]

And all old links are now broken. Ugh.

[Spokes]

And all old links are now broken. Ugh.

Damn. Well, looks like we've got some work ahead of us.

[KevinL]

And all old links are now broken. Ugh.

I really hate it when this happens with a redesign - I'm no expert on this stuff, but can't redirects be made using the old site's framework?

[plam]

Oh Flash. I think most people have a love-hate relationship with it.

No. I always hate it. It is almost always superfluous.

I really hate it when this happens with a redesign - I'm no expert on this stuff, but can't redirects be made using the old site's framework?

It's a pretty big hassle, but it's better to plan the site so that URLs aren't terrible in the first place, so that they can be easily redirected. For instance, it's easy to set up redirects from URLs like http://patricklam.ca/tpm, but not so much when they have lots of letters and numbers, and then you need to keep running the old software, which you probably don't want to do.

[David]

Dead links aside of course, I think that Kitchener's new website is very nice. Change was long overdue, I found that the old one was very difficult to navigate.

[taylortbb]

It sure looks nice, and easier to navigate. Unfortunately they've failed on accessibility. They claim it's accessible, I'm certain their vendor told them it was accessible (accessibility requirements were in the RFP they put out, I remember reading it), but it's not accessible to those with disabilities. I took me about 30 seconds to spot 5 ways they didn't meet their own accessibility requirements. I wish there were better checks on this sort of thing. There's no reason in this day and age for websites to not be accessible. However, it's still better than their old website both in looks and accessibility, so I'm reasonably happy.

[Urbanomicon]

It sure looks nice, and easier to navigate. Unfortunately they've failed on accessibility. They claim it's accessible, I'm certain their vendor told them it was accessible (accessibility requirements were in the RFP they put out, I remember reading it), but it's not accessible to those with disabilities. I took me about 30 seconds to spot 5 ways they didn't meet their own accessibility requirements. I wish there were better checks on this sort of thing. There's no reason in this day and age for websites to not be accessible. However, it's still better than their old website both in looks and accessibility, so I'm reasonably happy.

How can a website be more accessable to people with disabilities?

[Waterlooer]

Hmm, I'm not sure how it would affect people with disabilities?