VENTNOR – The city’s new website that launched July 4 was designed to be more intuitive for visitors and visually reflects a positive image for the city, officials said.
“After two years working on it, we finally declared independence from our outdated website on July 4,” Commissioner Tim Kriebel said.
He provided a tour of the website during the Board of Commissioners meeting on July 11.
“It’s an outlet for people to communicate with the city. One of the major goals was to make it more attractive,” Kriebel said.
Most of the content is “photo-centric,” with some of the photos submitted by residents and others taken by Little Rock Studios, he said.
The city wanted the new design to be user-friendly and readily available on hand-held devices.
“It’s very mobile friendly. We really needed to have it on everyone’s cell phones,” he said.
The website was developed by EvoGov, Inc. of Colorado, a government website design and hosting company that offers flat-fee pricing based on population. The company has designed websites for Coral Gables, Florida; Wheeling, West Virginia; and Kitchikan, Alaska, among others.
Ventnor’s website cost $11,800, considered a small city for the company, and includes a mass email system, intranet for employees and a bid portal, Kriebel said. Unlimited file storage is available on the EVO Cloud. The cost of hosting the site is $1,500 a year.
A search bar in the upper right-hand corner of the home page will redirect users to the proper page upon request. Each department has its own page where visitor can find more information. Also on the front page is a scrolling News Spotlight announcing upcoming events. Other front-page boxes include a weather app, and “See, Click, Fix,” an app where residents can report a street lighting outage, problem with trash or recycling pickup or report a code enforcement issue.
The website contains PDF files of all the forms and documents residents and property owners need to request permits and other approvals, such as obtaining a mercantile license for short-term rentals. It also includes a link to county tax maps, flood information, and provides a place for residents to pay their tax and utility bills, or purchase beach tags with a small user fee. A map and list of businesses is also included.
A graph on the front page provides information about municipal spending in an effort to provide financial transparency.
“It gives a visual of what’s happening financially,” Kriebel said.
The financial feature allows those interested to “drill down” to salaries for each department, “so people can see what it costs to run the city,” Kriebel said.
Another interesting feature is the Explore Ventnor link on the front page that takes visitors to a series of videos about Ventnor’s lifestyle, businesses, real estate, dining and entertainment, and community organizations. The company spent two days recording scenes of Ventnor to put together the video clips, Kriebel said.
On the Explore Our City link, visitors can see a map that highlights the locations of city parks, recreational facilities, landmarks, and when you most need it, the location of public rest rooms.
Kriebel said EvoGov also provides analytics that can be used to refine the site and direct future updates. A refresh of the design can be done in several years, “if we want it,” he said.
“It’s going to take a while for people who are used to the old site, to get used to this site,” Commissioner Lance Landgraf said.
Videos of commission meetings will be posted on the site under the Live Meetings tab at the top of the front page.
See www.ventnorcity.org for more
