TO: Mayor and City Council
THROUGH: Steve Powers, City Manager
FROM: Krishna Namburi, IT Department Director/CIO
SUBJECT:
title
Community-Focused Website Redesign
Ward(s): All Wards
Councilor(s): All Councilors
Neighborhood(s): All Neighborhoods
end
ISSUE:
Information and update on the status of the current effort to create a community-focused
City of Salem's website.
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Information only.
body
SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND:
The City of Salem is undertaking a project to build a web presence that is more user-friendly and community-focused in its content and navigation. The work will use existing staff and software resources. To build this community-focused site in a way that best connects people to the issues they care about and resources they need, the City is incorporating community member input into the design of the website's content, functions, site structure, and overall look and feel of the new web presence.
FACTS AND FINDINGS:
Based on an assessment of best practice and award-winning websites, staff have built a framework for the new website. Work is underway to develop new written and visual content. The intent is to create an up-to-date web environment that is easy to browse with many paths to reach the information of interest using simple, intuitive, and interactive icons and images to help the website visitor find the information they are seeking.
Next Steps:
Staff are working to rewrite content and put it into the new structure. Staff anticipate making the new website available to interested community members through a "soft launch," in which both the new and the existing website will be available to web visitors as early as spring 2017.
Attachments:
1. Community Centric Website Redesign Presentation
09/16/2016