A new website with more modern features and service options is on tap for Isabella County after commissioners approved a nearly $66,000 contract to redesign the current site.
The project was a top priority at a recent goal setting session for county commissioners who expressed a desire to be user-friendly, current and accessible.
“This will change the public face of the county dramatically,” said County Administrator/Controller Margaret McAvoy. “We realize that for many people this is where they go to get a first impression of an area. The new website will be up-to-date with the current decade.”
The new site will be more visually attractive to visitors, more logically organized and more reflective of the Isabella County community, McAvoy said.
“I want the website to be more interactive, more representative of community at large, with rotating of pictures of things like our county parks, Central Michigan University, events hosted by the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the city, Union Township pictures and more,” MCAvoy said. “I think that if a person lives down river for example and their child is going to CMU they want to go to the county website to find links to the sheriff, links to the park system, to find out what’s happening in town...our current website doesn’t have the capacity to be robust.”
After collecting several bids, commissioners ultimately decided on Lansing-based Web Ascender’s proposal to redesign the website at a cost of $65,700, on McAvoy’s recommendation based on cost and key goal fulfillment.
“It’s kind of like being on a date; this company got us,” McAvoy told commissioners during last week’s work session. “They were head and shoulders our top pick...We’re going to walk into the present.”
Web Ascender’s proposal includes a visual redesign, building the capability for community members to fill out forms and make payments online, more autonomous website content creation for county departments and training and support for county employees.
In addition to maintaining the most current information online, the ability for some county employees to update website content themselves will make the process more efficient and less redundant, McAvoy said.
Currently all changes to the county’s website —even minor updates— need to be process through the IT department, a process that can be cumbersome and time consuming.
In order to design a more intuitive site Web Ascender’s proposal includes a survey of needs for each county department, an information architecture plan to logically organize 5,000 or more pages of information, along with search engine optimized strategy to help users easily find sought-after information.
Originally commissioners had budgeted $30,000 for a website redesign this year based on the most current information at that time but when bids on the project came in, viable projects ranged from $66,700 to $97,000.
Web Ascender’s project ultimately provided the most cost effective and the best fit for the county McAvoy said in her recommendation to the board.
The new website is expected to take about six months to complete and McAvoy expects the launch to be around the beginning of 2019; the website is expected to retain isabellacounty.org as its address.