The City of Plant City has operated the same website for quite a few years, and city officials have decided it’s time for a more user-friendly change.
City Manager Mike Herr signed a contract Oct. 15, for the redesign of the city’s current website and related data elements. The project will cost $18,500, taken from the 2014-2015 IT budget.
“This redesign project will update the appearance and functionality of our public website, and also significantly enhance our data sharing and interaction capabilities with the community,” Herr wrote in a report.
The exact launch date has not been officially set yet, but Bill McDaniel, assistant city manager for public safety, expects the website to go live in June 2015.
“We are in the earliest phases of the redesign process, which involves a lot of information gathering and logistical preparation,” McDaniel said.
In addition to changes in basic design elements, the update plan includes a blog, job listings, photo galleries and social media integration. There will also be a mobile application. Current spelling errors and broken links will be fixed.
In order to get feedback from community members who will eventually be frequent visitors to the new website, Herr and McDaniel are putting together a focus group.
“We are looking for interested citizens, business owners and other interested parties who might like to volunteer a bit of their time to provide us with input on what they would like to see from our redesigned website,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel said he hopes the focus group will include casual Internet users, as well as expert users who are familiar with standards in web design and operations. He is looking for participants of all ages. Focus group members will be able to submit feedback about what they would like to see on the website and what they expect to use the website for.
The contract for the project is with CivicPlus, a company that has specialized in creating websites for local governments since 2001.
“A city’s website should be a seamless mechanism that allows a citizen to be a fully engaged member of the community,” CivicPlus staff wrote on the company’s own website.
Focus Group
To express interest in joining the focus group, send an email to web-design@plantcitygov.com with your contact information and availability.
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.