May 20, 2021

CITIES AND COUNTIES

We work with many different types of clients and industries. We have been making strides in the municipal website design world, especially within Cities and Counties. We love working with cities/counties because it gives us the chance to serve the residents of each community, with their specific digital needs. 2020 was a very unpredictable and chaotic year for municipalities across the country. Citizens now more than ever, are having to rely on their city/county website to provide online tools & resources. Our goal at Planeteria is to provide service-centric websites so citizens are able to access every type of online resource possible. Not only do we want to provide these tools, but we want to create websites that are easy for citizens to use and navigate. When it comes to a city/county website, there are many different types of tools that can be integrated. Each city/county has its own special flair, unique audience, and rich history. In the initial phase of the website design process, our team works tirelessly to understand these aspects of the client’s city/county so we are able to best serve its citizens. Once we gather this information, we are able to lay a framework for a website that will be a huge support to citizens, which is not the case with most government websites. We have integrated countless tools for cities and counties, but there is a common theme of what citizens are wanting out of their website. We like to display the most popular actions on the homepage of the website, which we have seen to be online bill pay, alerts, citizen requests, water services, maps and locations, property tax payments, public safety, parks and recreation and many more.

SAMPLE CASE STUDY

Clackamas County is Oregon’s third most populous county and Planeteria delivered a service-centric solution. Planeteria was hired for website design and development services for the county’s 2,000+ page website that receives more than 2 million visits per year. After conducting an in-depth audit of their immense content, we conducted an audience needs assessment with relevant stakeholders to determine the most essential components for the new website. From these findings, we were able to integrate resource guides to help citizens identify which department they should be connecting with on the home page of the County website. Additionally, on the home page, we wanted to give citizens easy access to the most important resources and we wanted to display this information in a stackable format that is both aesthetically pleasing and scales easily for different screen sizes. These resources include interactive maps and locations, online property tax payments, payments and applications and public safety information. We were also able to syndicate news and events content throughout the website, to make it more streamlined for the user. Clackamas County has been extremely pleased with their website, and their community has been as well. 

EASY ACCESS TO KEY TOOLS AND SERVICES

On the home page, we wanted to give citizens easy access to the most important information and resources and we wanted to display this information in a stackable format that is both esthetically pleasing and scales easily for different screen sizes.

FEATURED GUIDES

Clackamas County has several resource guides to help citizens identify which department they should be connecting with. There is easy access to these guides on the home page of the County website.

SYNDICATION OF LATEST NEWS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

We believe municipal websites should be a tool that makes staff more effective and efficient. One way to achieve this is through content syndication of News & Events. County staff updates News and Events in the CMS and the News articles and calendar Events are syndicated throughout the website with one administrative effort.

“There are about 3,000 moving pieces that have to come together in the right order to complete a comprehensive web design project for a large-scale website. Thanks to the wonderful team at Planeteria, all those moving pieces came together on time and on budget and we couldn’t be happier with the end result.” – Justine Kadziel – Clackamas County