What you actually need to know to maintain a good county Web site, and decoding all these Web words isn’t always necessary By Jessi Torres

In THE unITED STATES ALonE, 215 MILLIon people are active on the Internet — that’s 72 percent of the population. Even in the most rural areas of the country, 52 per- cent of people are online.

More than half of u.S. Internet users have visited govern- ment Web sites, and the number of Americans visiting these sites is steadily increasing as visitors look to these sites to provide specifi c resources, information and online services.

For counties, having a Web presence is becoming increasingly more important as the Web becomes the main source of informa- tion for many people. But wading through the acronyms and the weird words of Web design can quickly begin to feel less like wading and more like drowning in unfamiliar waters. What does it really take to maintain a good county Web site?

Focus on the site’s visitors

Collin County recently received national recognition when it was honored as a fi nalist in the 2007 Best of Web competition hosted by the Center for Digital Government. Th e competition judges govern- ment Web sites on innovation, Web delivery of public services, ef- fi ciency, economy and functionality. Larry Jones, the Web architect for Collin County, said that both end-user navigation and speed are the most important aspects of a good county Web site.

“If end users can’t push a button and get what they want, the site has failed,” he said. “A site is useless if they can’t fi nd what they’re looking for.”

When Jones began working for Collin County, he said the Web site was created from an internal perspective; it was organized by de- partment. He refocused the Web site to make it more user friendly. “Sometimes we put in navigation that makes sense inside the or- ganization and not to the end user,” he said. “People aren’t going to visit HR looking for Veteran Services. now our philosophy is ‘What is the end user looking for?’ We’d rather have something in fi ve plac- es so the end user can fi nd it.”

Counties can avoid most Web site mistakes by simply viewing the site from the perspective of an outsider, said Mary Mize, the systems administrator and Web developer for Angelina County.

“Th e most important thing to consider when creating a site is who your audience is,” she said. “you want to lay it out so it’s easy for them to fi nd the information they’re looking for. Some of the newer sites, generally speaking, have changed to more subject- oriented Web sites. Th at makes the content easier to fi nd.” County insiders may think or- ganizing Web site content accord- ing to department makes sense, but for citizens who are unfamiliar with the diff erent functions of county government, a county site organized by the services the coun- ty provides — a subject-oriented Web site — makes more sense. Creating consistency is crucial Consistency in navigation is as important as focusing navigation on the site’s visitors, according to Jeff Lowe. Lowe is the president of JL Consulting, a company that provides Web site design, Web host- ing, programming, graphic design and internet consulting.

Lowe said the best way to avoid confusion is to create consistent navigation on each page so that when users navigate away from the home page, the menu bars remain the same, allowing visitors easy access to the entire site from each page.

“you want to make sure people don’t get lost or think, ‘Where did I see that?’” he said. “options should be clear in a menu. Avoid the old farmhouse layout where you have to go through this bedroom to get to that bathroom, etc. you need well-maintained menu naviga- tion that’s consistent throughout the site.”

Don’t assume that people visit county Web sites through the home page, Lowe advised. With the prevalence of search engines, people often enter sites through an internal page and not the home page, another reason having consistent navigation throughout the site is essential.

Consider speed over style

Jones from Collin County said counties should also consider speed in creating or updating their Web sites.

“you have to have sub-second response time,” he said. “If you have a big graphic, that makes the page load slow. A lot of scripts running make the page run slow.”

Users are often visiting county Web sites with a specifi c purpose in mind, and waiting for graphic-heavy pages to load can cause them frustration.

“one of the biggest mistakes I see people make with Web sites is overbeautifi cation,” Jones said. “Th ey do more to make it pretty — large fl ash fi les and pictures. Even if they’ve compressed the graphics and done everything right, there’s so much there that the page doesn’t load quickly. We want to make a beau- tiful site, but we have to remember that there’s a bigger price for the end user.”

Offer content according to users’ convenience So what are visitors to county sites looking for? Increasingly, citizens visit government Web sites for online services such as register- ing to vote; paying tickets and fi nes; ordering birth, death and marriage certifi cates; view- ing and ordering court records; looking up tax statements; making property-tax payments; and answering jury summonses.

People also use government sites for research purposes. Th ey want to know county history, identify schools in their district, view maps, understand codes and ordinances, fi nd parks, read and print pub- lications, learn about their elected offi cials, locate libraries, view li- censes and permits, and see photos of the county.

Texas counties have gotten creative with what they off er visitors to their Web sites. Angelina County includes an emergency check- list on its site. Tarrant County off ers vendor registration. Midland County has a warrant lookup. Dallas County provides a criminal- background search. Victoria County has a courthouse photo gallery. Lamar County off ers online vehicle registration. Webb County has a county judge progress report. El Paso County provides a searchable database of inmates. Collin County recently completed a project off ering live stream- ing of commissioners court meetings. Th e initial cost for the proj- ect was $40,000 to purchase all the equipment needed including hardware, servers and cameras. Th e county hired a vendor to host the streaming videos at a monthly cost of $1,200, which includes backup, storage, an availability guarantee, archiving past meetings, and service, support and maintenance.

Lowe from JL Consulting recommended that counties always in- clude a frequently asked questions section along with helpful tips that are updated regularly.

“Good sites have good information,” he said. “With your FAQ section, usually somebody has the exact question you’re answering.” Lowe said sites should be updated regularly with news, announce- ments, calendar information, and upcoming dates and events. Add new content regularly Many counties update their sites daily, Angelina County among them. Angelina’s site includes important dates and events on the home page along with announcements on the left navigation bar. “you always want to make sure that your content is up to date,” Mize said. “For a lot of people, the Web is their main source of information. Always make sure you’re checking your data — locations, times, phone numbers and fees. County fees are always changing, and we need to make sure we’re putting forth accurate data.”

Filtering all information updates for the Web site through one department could cause delays in the time it takes news to reach the site, said Jones in Collin County.

“Design a site that anybody can update so it doesn’t take an IT department,” he said.

Collin County, which updates its site about 12 times a day, allows many departments to update their own sections on the Web site, but the two-person Web staff updates the majority of the main content. The county switched from an inner-office-mail process to an electronic
process for requesting updates to the site.

“If anyone wanted updates, they used to create a Word document then submit it to us through the office mail,” Jones recalled. “Now it’s quicker because they just email it to us and it goes in the queue to be done immediately. Plus we can cut and paste and make the changes quicker.”

With many departments maintaining the content in their own sections, Collin County’s IT Department ensured design consistency
by creating a style sheet for the Web site. A style sheet is a template
for the site that specifies design elements like font style, header and footer placement, type size, colors and spacing.

The county’s commissioners court created guidelines for Web site content. When any department submits Web content, either the public information officer or the Web developer reviews the content for adherence to the guidelines. Content for certain sections of the Web site, however, doesn’t require review including the sheriff’s list of most-wanted criminals and all public notices.

Jones said the technical aspect of maintaining a good county Web site is a team effort among the different subsections of the IT Department.
“We in Web development sometimes get accolades, but we should acknowledge everyone: server, operations, telecommunications, networks,
graphic information services,” he said. “They all have a hand in the Web site from a technical perspective.”

Maintaining a good county Web site is an ongoing effort, but Lowe from JL Consulting said it’s worth the diligence when visitors to the Web site begin to trust that the site will provide them exactly what they need.

CIRA Offers Counties Cost-Saving Option for Web Sites

Sometimes county staff members have more than one job title and are required to complete many job functions. For counties
that don’t have an information technology department, the Texas Association of Counties’ County Information Resources Agency (CIRA) offers easy Web site maintenance for people who aren’t technologically inclined.

Lavaca County functions without an information technology department, and the county didn’t have a Web site at all until deciding to join CIRA. Kathy Shepard maintains the CIRA-hosted site for the county. Besides being the Web coordinator, she’s also secretary for Veterans Service, septic inspector, flood plain manager, assistant emergency manager and indigent health care administrator.

“CIRA was the best option for us because I have so many other jobs not including the Web site,” Shepard said. “We don’t have an IT person that could set up a site and keep it updated. With our site now, all it takes it just a few steps. You make your changes, click ‘publish’ and you’re finished. We’ve had no problems whatsoever.”

Other counties, however, choose to host their Web sites with CIRA even though they do have an information technology department.
Tom Green County hosted its own site in the past, but switched to a CIRA-hosted site mainly to save costs.

The greatest cost in creating a Web site is the initial set-up fee, according to Gayle Latham, the director of CIRA.

“To get the level of content management that we offer, it would cost counties up to $30,000 or even $50,000 dollars, and I’ve heard of counties paying a lot more than that,” she said. “Then it’s another $50 to $100 a month to maintain.”

CIRA offers counties free Web site hosting with a design template.

Once counties have the basic template, they can personalize the site. The template has some design limitations, but functionally,
offers everything fee-based Web-design companies offer.

Latham said that many of the 150 counties using the CIRA design template aren’t utilizing their sites’ full potential.

“In some instances, they probably just don’t think about the site that often,” she said. “And some counties may be afraid that the site will be too much work.”
Susan Counts, Tom Green County’s network coordinator, prefers the versatility of CIRA’s Web site content management to other Web management tools because “it’s basically just point and click.”

“The greatest benefit to having a CIRA site is that departments can make updates themselves,” Counts said. “In the past when departments
wanted to make updates, we would have to help them. They had to have some basic knowledge of HTML.”

Tom Green County has taken the standard CIRA template and added numerous images of elected officials, a map showing the boundary lines of each county commissioner’s precinct, and many other features.

Lavaca, San Jacinto, Nacogdoches and Houston are just some counties that have added extra features to their CIRA-hosted sites that make them more accessible to the public. For example, Nacagdoches
County added scrolling text at the top of the CIRA Web site for announcements, as well as smaller thumbnail images of the various historical Nacogdoches County courthouses. Browsers can mouse over the thumbnail images to see the full-size images.
CIRA offers full customer support to counties wanting those types of elements added to their page.

“You can always go see another county’s Web site,” Shepard in Lavaca County said. “You can always call them. We work together, like I’ll call and say, ‘I love your scrolling tool … how did you do that?’ It’s good to look at other CIRA Web pages and see what they’re doing.”
The Texas Association of Counties has links to all Texas county Web sites at county.org/counties/txcounties.asp.