City, county to redesign website
♦ Officials say there’s a need for a more user-friendly online presence.
The problems within a jointly operated government website became even more obvious once people needed it during the pandemic, Floyd County Manager Jamie Mccord said.
The website overhaul has been in the works for well over a year, he said, and they recognize that people are using virtual services now more than ever.
Both Rome and Floyd County use the website, romefloyd.com, but the redesign will better distinguish the separate municipal services such as water payments, taxes and public safety.
Even before the pandemic shut down and eventual limitation of interaction with the public, there were obvious design issues.
Mccord said the search engine on the website has caused a lot of problems for users, such as finding the Unified Land Development Code document that includes the list of zoning and special use permits in the county.
It’s not just “user unfriendly,” he said, it’s difficult for department heads to update their own pages with new information. There’s not one individual, or department, in charge of the website. That’s something they plan to change.
One of the first changes that County Clerk Erin Elrod brought up at the Tuesday County Commission caucus is making the URL “romefloyd.com” a landing page to direct the user to either the city website or the county website.
There are other joint services, like Public Animal Welfare Services, that they’ll have to consider where its web presence will be located.
Commissioners approved a $40,000 contract with Municode for the county’s website redesign, with Assistant County Clerk Amy Dawkins in charge of the project. The board decided on Municode after hearing from Elrod on what their other websites look like and the pricing.
One of the more interesting features of Municode, Elrod said, is a virtual meeting platform the county could use as an alternative to Zoom.
The city will be doing their own website with Civic Plus, a web design platform.
There’s one issue with the timeliness of the website update, Elrod said. Since many other small governments are looking at redesigns, the county will be put on a waiting list.