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General Discussion

Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points
Posted by Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

Tips for large webdesign project

So, this one of those questions that have so many different areas it's crazy I know. But I'm just looking for some feedback. I may have the opportunity to build a website for a rather large municipality. Obviously it depends on what all they need, but so far they are stuck in 1995 and really open to ideas. Things to consider -separate areas for all the city divisions -informational pages galore -linking to offices such as paying taxes, water bills, etc. (i think some of that is being handled 3rd party)

  • the ability for many many many users to be able to update the site with articles and content -and much more.

any thoughts, tips, or ideas for me to consider. Any thoughts on what cites are paying for large sites like this (I'm just going to quote what I need to quote, but just wondering what's out there) any feedback would be great. thanks

3 Answers

by4
by4
34 Points
by4
by4
34 Points

It's a municipal website. Keep it modern, keep it simple. The UK just solved their terribly laid-out and unorganized government website by changing the layout and content entirely, and thus, GOV.UK was born. Don't combine unrelated content and make sure it's all easy to find. Keep older readers in mind and guarantee that they can find the information they're looking for easily.

Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points
Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

great thoughts. It's good see these sites going in a more modern direction. So many I've seen hurt the eyes to look at, both because of bad design and because of the incredible amount of small hard to read text listing hundreds of pages

Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points
Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

awesome, thanks. I think getting a good grip on these ideas will also help me with my smaller sites as well. kind of like when I first took a course on Database design. I had no clue all the theory and thoughts that go into setting up gigantic databases and the different types. All i knew at the time was setting up my little mySQL DBs. I learned a lot in that course that apply pretty much all the databases I do now.

Sharon Walls
Sharon Walls
9,234 Points
Sharon Walls
Sharon Walls
9,234 Points

Bailey and James both gave great answers.

I'd just like to add: Make sure you are awesome at accessibility. Government sites need their site to be accessible to all members of the community; some states/countries even have legal requirements regarding accessibility (like here in the UK). If your municipality is still stuck in 1995, they may not know what they need in this regard. :)