New year, new website for Herriman City
Jan 25, 2021 10:15AM ● By Justin Adams
By Justin Adams | [email protected]
“New year, new me” is a popular slogan for people entering a new year with resolutions for self-improvement. For Herriman City, it’s a new year and a new website.
“Our new site is cleaner, simpler and more visually appealing for users. It is intended to be intuitive and easy to navigate for both frequent and infrequent Herriman.org visitors,” said Jonathan LaFollette, the city’s communications manager.
The city had been running the previous version of its website since 2013. “We knew a redesign was overdue and it was time to upgrade its functionality—both front end and back end— as well as its usability, navigation, appearance,” LaFollette said.
The city partnered with LunaStudios, a local Utah website design company, to build the new website. The design process began last summer, and has encompassed hundreds of hours of work for the city’s communications staff, transferring information from one site to the other.
One feature of the new website is an “I Want To…” tab, which presents an organized directory of the website’s many pages, allowing users to quickly access what they’re looking for rather than searching through multiple pages.
There is also a built-in mass email/text messaging platform, which LaFollette said has eliminated the need for a third-party software for which the city previously spent about $25,000 annually.
The new website has also been designed with accessibility in mind. In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen is an icon which opens up a menu of options which alter the website to accommodate users’ unique needs.
Although users won’t see this, the website also has improvements on the back end, making it easier for the city’s staff to manage the website, saving countless hours in the future.
The site launched successfully in January without any major hiccups, according to LaFollette. While there hasn’t been a ton of public feedback, all of it has been positive so far.
“All the comments I have heard to this point are that the change is welcome and that the site is easier and more enjoyable to use,” he said. “We invite anyone who has issues or questions with the site to reach out to us at [email protected].”
