Palo Alto Web Site Advisory Committee Update

1
Palo Alto Web SiteAdvisory CommitteeUpdate

• City Council Study Session
• May 18, 2009

2
Introduction

• The role of civic engagement partnership Jim
  Keene
• Why this committee was formed Lalo Perez
• What we were tasked to do
• The selection process Lalo Perez
• Committee membership Lalo Perez

3
Committee Members

• Philippe AlexisOwner Website Development Company
  
• Mark EdenWeb Deployment Manager
• Sheri FurmanUser Assistance Developer
• Carol GilbertWebmaster/Tech Writer
• Bob HarringtonAdvisor to Mayor / Broadband
• Lori HeymanInternet Marketing Consultant

• Arthur KellerTechnical Startup Consultant
• Gary LindgrenEngineer
• Sean MomenyIT Web Consultant
• John Raftrey Online Marketing
• Joe VillarealWeb Voter Database Consultant
• Dave Voelker Communication Consultant

4
How We Began

• Summarized citizen feedback
• Analyzed the comments submitted to web
• Reviewed the postings on Town Square
• Identified problem areas
• Missing/incorrect/hard to find information
• Organization/Navigation difficulties
• Design-related issues
• Captured the Top 20 popular pages
• Helped us understand what users were really
  looking for
• Enabled us to focus our efforts

5
What We Did

• Defined the issues readability, navigation,
  content, site architecture, site design
• 5 subcommittees analyzed specific areas and made
  recommendations
• Reviewed dozens of pages on the current Palo Alto
  siteidentified hard to locate information
  analyzed the site usability
• Assessed dozens of other municipal sites for best
  practices, including
• Local sites Cupertino, Mountain View, Menlo
  Park, San Mateo
• Award-winning sites U.S. Aurora, CO
  Seattle, WA Fairfax, VA Wichita, KS
  Plymouth, MN

6
Areas of Focus

• Readability
• Improve the color contrast
• Increase the text size
• User-centric
• Focus on residents, businesses, visitors
• Organize by user needs, rather than by City
  departments
• Navigation
• Provide information in fewer clicks
• Site should help people find not only what
  theyre looking for, but what they dont even
  know theyre looking for
• Wow, I didnt know that was in Palo Alto!

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Areas of Focus

• Branding
• Reflect the Palo Alto brand
• Community Gateway
• Integrate the array of community websites
• Non-profits, environmental groups, neighborhoods
• eServices
• Incorporate fully operational e-government
• Future Technologies
• Design the site to support new technologies as
  they arise
• Browsers, video, mobile devices, interactivity
• Search
• Include CMRs and other staff reports in search
  results

8
Accomplishments to Dateby Committee and Staff

• Generated detailed lists of more than 70 items
  for improvement
• Design issues
• Content
• Website efficiency
• Infrastructure
• Sorted the work items by priority buckets and
  scoped the level of work required
• What can be done now
• What requires additional time and resources
• Looking to the future

9
More Accomplishments

• Made a number of adjustments and corrections
• Added a search box on every page
• Changed to free Google Analytics a 5000 annual
  savings!
• Reported a series of needed fixes to web pages
• Orphan pages, inconsistent nomenclature,
  technical issues, among others
• Met with CMS provider Civica
• Discussed the feasibility of our recommendations
• Contributed 700 volunteer hours

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Best Practices Readability ? Clean at-a-glance
design
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Best Practices Readability ? Contrast and font
size
12
Best Practices Readability? Make better use of
page layout
13
Best Practices User-Centric ? Enhanced visitor
information
14
Best Practices Navigation ? Use sticky
pull-down menus

15
Best Practices Navigation ? Enhanced quick links
16
Best Practices Navigation ? Improved A-Z index
17
Best Practices Navigation ? Detailed site map
18
Best Practices Branding? Consistent City brand
to reflect identity

19
Best Practices Community Gateway? Consolidated
emergency information
20
Best Practices Community Gateway ? Provide
neighborhood information

21
Best Practices eServices? Expanded eServices
22
Best Practices eServices ? Consolidated
notification signup
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Best Practices eServices? Consolidated
volunteer site
24
Best Practices Future Technologies ? Enhanced
video communication
?
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Next Steps

• Work on Bucket 1 Tasks
• Bucket 1 tasks are the low-hanging fruit
• Improvements can be made quickly with existing
  resources
• Committee will work with staff to determine how
  to accomplish these tasks
• Some examples
• Maximize the color contrast between the text and
  the background
• Add link from Visitors section to the new
  Destination Palo Alto Visitors Guide

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Next Steps

• Set priorities and determine resource
  requirements for Buckets 2 and 3
• Buckets 2 and 3 contain work that will take more
  time and additional resources and which will be
  presented to you at a future date
• During the next two months Committee will work
  with staff to clarify and price the effort
• Ongoing effort to incrementally transition the
  web site, such as
• Revised navigation bars
• Redesigned page layout
• Enhanced business links