New City Website went Live Yesterday

Yesterday the City announced full public testing and access for the latest version of the new municipal website.

New Home page - very tabletized for moble users

Have you checked it out? If not, poke around, and the next time you need to look up something on the City site, be sure to use the new one first.

No Planning Commission Agenda Yet

Not everything is populated, so some searches come up empty.

There's some inconsistent navigation. Sometimes the big buttons click through to the next level in the page heirarchy.

Extra clicks sometimes required

Sometimes they don't.

Clicking on "Planning Notices and Decisions" expanded a caption, and then required a second click to "learn more." Two clicks here was annoying.

From the press release. It's interesting they did it in-house.

The site will ask website visitors to submit feedback via an online form if they wish. “We look forward to receiving input from residents as they explore it. ” said website project manager Laura Singer.

To reduce costs and ensure the new site is better able to stay up to date, the City built the site entirely in-house with a team of passionate City staff from multiple departments. That team came together to reimagine the website and created new content with a consistent look and feel. No third - party consultants were used in this project. Krishna Namburi, Information Technology Director/CIO for the City says, “Our goal is to deliver and maintain a site that makes a visible difference in the Salem community.”

We'll come back with more notes after using it more. Between yesterday and today, some things were populated it looks like, so things are also in flux, and most judgements should probably remain tentative and provisional for the moment.