On Friday 11-11-11, the City of Laramie will have a new website ready for the public.
Information Technology Division Manager Jonathan Rhoades said he looked forward to the new website.
“We thought the current website was difficult to find information,” Rhoades said.
There is currently an average of 22,756 hits a day on the city’s website. Because of that, the city wanted a website that functioned with greater ease, Rhoades said.
The new website has been in the making since March. During the April 19 council meeting, the members voted to approve $50,739.00 to Icon enterprises, Inc., Civic Plus, to redesign the city’s website.
The website needs to make sure it does at least two functions: keep the old archived content and make sure new content is up to date, Rhoades said.
His company generally approaches a website redevelopment by assessing the weaknesses of the current website finding solutions, CivicPlus Vice President of Business Development Jesse Manning said.
“We want them to utilize the web,” he added.
CivicPlus goes through an in-depth process to determine the architectural needs and design, from there they clean up content for quicker search and then train the users how to operate the software, Manning said.
The general weakness of the current website would most likely be difficulty in administering updates and search weaknesses, he said.
But, he added that he was not on the team that directly handled the redesign of the City of Laramie’s website.
Updating the website will be easier because of the content management system based site the city will be transitioning to, Rhoades said.
The CMS will allow for those who are not familiar with HTML code to easily update the site. Currently, there are two administrators who operate the back-end of the system and each city department updates its own information, Rhoades said.
The departments will now be able to quickly update its own information and remotely send it with the new system, he added.
“I do think that people will find the new website easier to use,” Rhoades said.
He also said the website would have better compatibility with mobile devices as well as following the American Disabilities Act guidelines.
His company made a large effort to focus on mobile development.
“One of the changes we have made is to develop for mobile first and then the rest,” Manning said.
The visual design of the site could last about four years, but the CMS itself would likely last longer, Rhoades said.
“There are enough people going there (the city website) that if they want a better product, we should deliver it. And we will,” Rhoades said.
