Title
City of Gainesville Website (B)
Communications and Marketing Office (CMO) staff will present and briefly review enhanced features of the new City of Gainesville Web site.
Explanation
In March of 2007, at the request of the Communications and Marketing Manager, Vision Internet, a nationally recognized leader in municipal website design, presented its plan to the City Manager to revise the City website at an estimated cost ranging from $50,000-$70,000. In May 2007, Communications and Marketing staff submitted an interim solution for the redesign of the City website at a substantially reduced cost. In July 2007, the City Manager approved a proposal from CMO staff to redesign the visual appearance of the primary level pages of the City's external web site and to develop subordinate level templates for it.
The redesign would allow city agencies additional flexibility to customize and update content on their pages. This project proposal also emphasized improvement of navigational toolbars to enhance site usability for internal and external users and the increased decentralization of website information content management functions to the department and division level. In concert with technical support provided by the Information Technology Department, site development proceeded in three phases.
The first phase consisted of a review of the site map to plot appropriate navigational outlines, including appropriate groupings of various departments and services. This phase also included a review and revision to the navigational language and topical headings used on the website. This phase was coordinated through the City's Communication Advisory Group which is comprised of Communications & Marketing staff and volunteer representatives from selected City Charter Offices and departments.
The second phase was design oriented. Following the graphic rational that features the City's new logo and brand tagline, "Every path starts with passion." The stylistic cues of the new website are informed and reflective of the new logo design. The new designs incorporate sweeping graphic themes which mirror the path element in the new logo. The use of color is consistent with the newly developed color scheme developed as part of the City branding process.
The revised navigational outline features a contemporary design that includes "best practices" adopted from peer cities that have been recognized for their award-winning websites. The web site main splash page was designed with these control elements closely observed. They include drop-down menus, cascading style sheets, and Java-based images. Appropriate page banners, sublevel department pages and headers have also been developed.
The third phase consists of a continuing phased implementation program to systematically incorporate revisions to navigational structures, new page designs, and enhanced e-commerce features into the City web site. The implementation phase was supervised by the Information Technology Department web manager, who liaised with the design team to resolve any system hardware, software scripting, or design issues.
Fiscal
The City of Gainesville Web site was redesigned for a total of $8,000. Of this, $6,200 was for a designer and $1,800 was for necessary software.
Recommendation
The City Commission hear a presentation from Communications and Marketing staff about the new Web site.