City of Idaho Falls launches revamped website
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The following is a news release from the City of Idaho Falls.
IDAHO FALLS – We are pleased to announce that the City of Idaho Falls will launch a new and improved website today, Monday, March 6, 2017.
The new user-friendly design makes navigating the City of Idaho Falls website much easier than the prior site launched in 2009. The primary navigation buttons and tabs, created based on analytics that have identified the most frequently used searches, arranges the departments and divisions in a more efficient and organized manner. The new site is also responsive to mobile devices.
The design was developed specifically for the City of Idaho Falls. The homepage features city news, events, meetings and links to current topics and frequently requested information. Four department-specific designs that mirror the city’s main page were part of this first phase of the redesign – Idaho Falls Police Department, Idaho Falls Regional Airport, Parks & Recreation and Idaho Falls Power. Additional department designs will be added in the coming years.
The Transparency & Open Government link under the Government menu contains important information such as annual budget reports, ordinances, public meeting agendas, public record requests, live video streaming, Citizen Review Committee reports, construction projects and campaign finance reports.
The Notify Me feature provides city departments with more options to communicate with the public. Citizens can sign up to receive such things as city alerts, press releases, events and meeting notifications, and electronic newsletters via email.
Using the new citizen request tracker, citizens will not only be able to report concerns such as potholes, weed control issues, street light outages, etc., but they will also be able to track the work from start to finish via email notifications.
Under the Service menu, citizens can review snow removal policies, complete a vacation check request, or make an online payment. City contractors will also be able to view all open bids in one convenient area and sign up to receive alerts when new bids are posted.
The Community menu includes links to webcams, events and attractions, demographics, education and public safety.
Additional user-friendly functionalities such as drag-and-drop features will help streamline city staff processes including workflow centers, bid postings, synchronized calendars, citizen request tracker, agenda management, mass communications and media integration.
The city invested approximately $60K in the new website that included redesign, content migration, on-site training and a one-year hosting fee. Using funding allocated in the new website FY2015/2016 budget, the committee hired local photographer, Sherri Barnes, for high-resolution images to incorporate into the website. City employees also contributed to the photography.
“The website committee worked diligently to find a website company with extensive experience in city government and to create a design based on analytics and customer needs,” states Mayor Rebecca Casper. “For more than six months, these employees worked on the design, content migration, functionality and employee training, all while performing their other day-to-day responsibilities. I commend Project Manager, Derek Wood, in the IT Division and the City’s Public Information Officer, Kerry Hammon for the project leadership. The entire website committee is be praised for its attention to detail, professionalism and dedication to this project. They came in under budget and delivered a clean, citizen-centric design,” adds Casper.
A mobile app will be added this spring. The smartphone app will allow citizens to submit concerns via their mobile devices, as well as receive alerts and push notifications.
History
In March 2016, the City of Idaho Falls issued a Request for Proposal from qualified firms to design, configure and implement a new and improved city website that would increase engagement with the public, optimize functionality and incorporate new city branding.
The city entered into a contract with CivicPlus in May 2016. CivicPlus is a website company with a primary focus on designing website solutions for governmental agencies and cities such as Idaho Falls. CivicPlus has more than 2,000 government clients with over 50,000 users and a staff of more than 200. CivicPlus clients have won over 370 state and national awards for website design and implementation.
“CivicPlus’ core competency is on designing website solutions for government entities and cities like ours,” states Public Information Officer, Kerry Hammon. “They also redesigned the websites for the cities of Pocatello and Twin Falls so we were confident in their ability to design and implement a website that would fit our customer’s and employee’s needs as well as our culture.”