Dunwoody city officials are hiring a New York-based consultant to redesign the city’s website in hopes of making it easier to use.
Bob Mullen, city marketing and public relations director, said the intention is to make the website easier to search so it would provide better communications with residents. Work begins on the project this month, and city officials expect it to last four to six months.
“We’re trying to improve our communications consistency,” Mullen said.
In 2013, the site attracted 135,000 unique visitors, Mullen said. It regularly attracts about 2,800 unique visitors a week, he said. The site is used to post information about city projects, city council agenda and video of council meetings.
“My hope is that the new site will be more transparent, both historically and going forward,” said City Councilman John Heneghan, who maintains a blog on city and community issues. “It’ll be more like a Google search. That’s my hope, based on the previous work by the company.”
The city is paying Jesse James Creative $62,060 to revamp the site to make it more “intuitive” for users. “As demonstrated by their completed sites, Jesse James Creative has an eye toward bringing more information front and center for visitors … to encourage exploration,” Mullen and city Information Technology director Ashley Smith said in a memo to the council.
The council unanimously approved the website redo in December.
“I think at the end of the day when you compare what the site is today with what the new site will be, there’ll be a vast improvement,” Mullen said.