Covington’s presence on the web will be changing soon thanks to a redesign of the city’s website set to launch Feb. 1.
“We are very excited to be launching a new city website that will allow us the ability to provide our website users with the information that they need quickly and efficiently,” said the city’s community relations coordinator, Karla Slate, in an e-mail interview.
Along with the new site, the city has decided to use a simplified URL, www.covingtonWA.gov. The existing website will work, Slate said, “but we wanted to offer a shorter and easier to remember” web address.
Slate explained the city’s original website was developed in 2002. It did the job for a number of years.
“As the city has grown, we received feedback from website users about their increasingly difficult experiences trying to navigate and find information on the website,” she said. “Additionally, updating the website was costly, cumbersome and often took up to 48 hours to implement because we contracted with an off-site web developer. Over time, the original website was just not serving the city’s or the users’ needs anymore.”
Covington residents, according to a 2009 survey, use the city’s website to get information second only to the Reporter’s site, Slate noted.
“We set out to find a way to make the site function properly and keep with the times without spending more to do it,” Slate said. “The city’s budget allowed around $7,000 annually for website maintenance, updates and hosting. We were able to secure a contract for a new website within that existing budget for about $5,000, with annual maintenance expenses thereafter being about $1,800 – saving the city about $5,200 per year.”
Slate pointed out that website design such as what Covington officials wanted would have cost between $15,000 and $25,000.
Covington hired Revize to implement the new design and content management system for the site, Slate said, but city staff also provided considerable input into the design direction and help transferring content to the new website.
The city put out a request for proposals in August and first met with Revize on Sept. 15. The process, once the site goes live next week, will have taken four and a half months.
There are a number of things the new website will allow the city to do, Slate said.
“The city will be able to provide critical information and updates via the website immediately and in real time – no more waiting a couple of days to get something new posted,” she said. “The new website will have a more modern and sophisticated look and feel, which will give a more accurate first impression of city government to visitors, especially potential new businesses.”
In addition, it will be easier to manage thus allowing staff to focus time previously spent on the site on other tasks, while also making forms available on the site that can be filled out and submitted online such as commission applications, community room rentals, among others.
“Users will find an easier to navigate website and should be able to find the information they need in less time,” Slate said. “This will also save users from having to come into or call city hall for the information they need.”
