The city website at grandrapidsmi.gov has shifted from a department-based layout to a service-based structure with prominent icons allowing users to quickly make payments, report issues, and access services.
“We're thinking of it as intuitive, like, you know, when you want to pay a parking ticket, you just want to pay a parking ticket. You don't really care who, what office in the city gets it. You just want to pay it, or challenge it probably, in most people's cases.”
Communications Director David Green says the redesign is more adaptable and optimizes AI.
“Because increasingly more and more people are using it, whether they want to or not in some cases, unlike search engines and so forth. You're getting AI summaries. And so, we wanted to make sure that that information was not just accurate, but it was able to pull that information easily from our site so that we can become that trusted source.”
The website redesign includes an events calendar, a dedicated news section for local activities and allows for department subscriptions.
Green encourages users to make recommendations.
“We really are trying to adopt a continuous improvement philosophy with this site, so instead of tearing the site down and rebuilding it every few years, we're going to be optimizing and improving it based on user feedback as we go.
Green says the site is powered by an improved, low-cost content management system.
The redesigned website is available now at grandrapidsmi.gov.
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