NORWICH — The city has a new look online, with a redesigned website that launched Dec. 18 and that the city says is more user-friendly for mobile devices such as cell phones, iPads and tablets.
According to the city, users of mobile devices make up approximately 50 percent of the daily inquiries to the site.
The improvements mean users with phones or tablets that want to stream videos of City Council meetings can now do so, or can view the city's boat launch camera at norwichct.org/boat.
They can also sign up for reminders of when meetings of various city boards and commissions will take place through the city calendar of events notification feature. The Recreation Department began accepting online registration for programs at norwichct.org/recreation.
There's also a central place to access the city's social media accounts. Department Facebook pages can be found at norwichct.org/Facebook and Twitter accounts at norwichct.org/Twitter.
The change in Norwich's website comes several weeks after Preston also revamped its town site. Both sites were designed using CivicPlus, a firm that specializes in municipal websites.
Norwich's relaunch had only minor hiccups.
"There was a small setback due to some minor page design issues that have since been corrected," City Manager John Salomone said.
Future features the city plans to include on the site are a blog by City Historian Dale Plummer, access to archived City Council meeting video recordings and the ability to book a rental of the pavilion at Mohegan Park.
One of the three scrolling photos on the new site was contributed by the Norwich Free Academy photography class graduate Lydia Hindle, who also will have some additional work featured on the site in the spring.
Resident Elanah Sherman said the new site, with its clean design and organized menus, looks more user-friendly.
"It's much more usable to a person with a standard computer. It's more direct," Sherman said.
Sherman also said she was happy the site appears to be compliant with laws requiring that it offer accessibility options for people with disabilities, such as readability via screen-reading software.