The City of Chestermere unveiled the new look of their website www.chestermere.ca Feb. 24.
“We’ve changed the structure to make it more resident focused,” said Communications Advisor Katie Lamanna who was the lead for this project.
“And really give residents a great user experience,” she said.
The update comes as part of the city’s contract with CivicPlus. They are the city’s website provider and offer a free update to the website every four years.
“The last time our website was redesigned was in 2012,” she said.
Lamanna and other city staff worked with CivicPlus over the past six-months to create the unique to Chestermere site that they hope will meet resident’s needs.
To make the site easier to navigate new features that have been added include a change to a more service based page structure, consistent landing pages when clicking on links and the removal of redundant information.
Residents who log on will notice the difference right away. The homepage opens with a header containing reorganized menus and links to city information and services.
There is also a slide show for new and highlighted information, a large search bar, a feedback form, various additional links and the city’s social media feeds at the bottom of the page.
The new site is also mobile friendly so Chestermerians who prefer to access the internet from their phone or tablet will now get the full Chestermere.ca experience.
“Before it was not very visually appealing on the phone or tablet,” she said.
About half of the approximately 20,000 visitors to the website do so from a mobile device.
Since the site went live, they have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from the community.
“We’ve actually had a lot of positive feedback so far from residents,” said Lamanna, “but we definitely want more.”
In addition to the new mobile responsiveness the most significant changes to the websites is the inclusion of dynamic interactive maps and the creation of an economic development micro site, www.investchestermere.ca.
This sight has specific information directed at businesses looking to move to or invest in Chestermere.
“We’ve got information about the economic development office itself,” said Corporate Communications Strategist Megan Matthies.
“What the function does, where they’re going,” she said, “and of course the business directory as well.”
Although there is increased functionality and content, Lamanna said that with the improved interface staff shouldn’t have to spend any more time managing the website then they did before.
They are encouraging residents to provide their feedback as they use the new site so that staff can continue to tweak the site to create the best possible user experience.
Some older and outdated information from the previous website has been removed and archived. It is still available to the public by calling city hall.
