The city’s primary website is slated for a comprehensive revamp from a California-based vendor, due in part to staff’s assessment that the work needed to properly improve the site exceeds their resources and abilities. An item on next week’s City Council agenda would allocate $5.5 million for a six-year contract with TW Lrw Holdings, LLC, which does business as Material Holdings, LLC.
The overhaul, led by the Communications and Technology Management (CTM) and Communications and Public Information Office (CPIO) teams, comes as part of the city’s response to the changing needs of users as well as years of criticism for the website’s performance and organization. Over the past year, staff implemented several updates, including a new “All Services Hub” and language translation software, while reducing website content from 16,000 to less than 9,000 pages to streamline navigation.
Despite these efforts, the current infrastructure has been deemed insufficient for meeting Austin’s growing population’s needs, according to a recent memo to Council and Mayor Kirk Watson from Kerrica Laake, director of Communications & Technology Management, and Jessica King, director of the Communications & Public Information Office.
The memo said Material Holdings will make improvements to enhance user experience, operational efficiency, usability and accessibility reporting. Improvements specified in the memo include improved search and navigation, consistent and scalable design, a personalized experience for each user, integration with the city’s other digital systems and better accessibility for all users.
The request for proposal issued last year received 14 responses, with the city looking for “a modern (site) focused on a personalized customer experience which is both intuitive and efficient.”
Prior attempts to improve the website have been marked by starts and stops, with past employees involved in the efforts saying the work wasn’t grounded in the concept of offering the best possible experience for residents and others visiting the site.
Steven Apodaca, chair of the city’s Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission, said he’s been pleased by recent work to make it easier for users to apply for a job or contact City Council members, with language accessibility improved.
Via email, Apodaca said some of his priorities for the new site include ease of use for all digital literacy levels, responsive design for easy use on all devices, and high reliability and uptime to reduce backups in service offerings.
Sumit Dasgupta, another member of the commission, said the website’s upcoming revamp has come as a surprise. As a longtime software designer, Dasgupta said the city will need to provide its chosen vendor with a clear requirements document that will ensure consistency across all pages they visit.
“The front screen should be identical to everything else, with pulldown menus for the different departments or hot buttons that take you to specific parts of the city departments like Austin Water and Austin Energy,” he said. “One of the things that customers always came back with is, don’t give us a feeling that we’re jumping from one front end to another. Make it as consistent as possible. There will be some differences, but there should be some consistent set of rules, and the terminology and semantics should be the same.”
Kerry O’Connor, former chief innovation officer for the city, said rather than a complete overhaul of the site the city should consider an approach that improves small pieces separately to ensure they work with each other and perform as needed for users.
“We had to adopt the practices of agile software development, where you’re taking off these little bites and you’re checking it with designers and then you’re coding it and the designers are checking it with people,” she said. “It’s the opposite of doing a five-year plan. It’s more like establishing something to achieve and then checking with everybody on the back end, on the front end, to ask does it achieve what we want, and then going live with it.”
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Austin Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission: The Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission advises the Austin City Council on community technology and telecommunication services.
Communications and Public Information: This city department provides information to the media, engages with stakeholders in the community, and promotes city projects and initiatives.
