What's happening
City officials and staff said the reworking of austintexas.gov is long overdue as the website is currently overstuffed and difficult to navigate for everyday Austinites.
“From an equity perspective, our goal is to have people enter the site and be able to search easily and identify based on their user need," said Jessica King, director of the city's communications office. "So not having to understand our organization is the first step; really organizing the site to meet their needs."
Chief Information Officer Kerrica Laake said the city has made "extensive improvements" to the site's usability and accessibility already. For example, thousands of individual webpages have been trimmed from the existing site and its translation services have been improved. Still, she said a new version of the site is needed.
“Many of these tasks have been manual and time-intensive, and we recognize it’s still not enough," Laake said. "We’ve stretched the boundaries of what we can do with the current technology."
The modernization will cover most city departments, although those with standalone websites like the library system and Austin Energy likely won't be covered at the start.
Council member Alison Alter said she hopes an improved system will help residents beyond their online navigation needs, like enrolling in city conservation programs. She said that information can be buried in utility webpages today and that more Austinites might take advantage of those programs, and improve their environmental impacts, if it's easier to enroll.
Council member Mackenzie Kelly also said streamlining access to a variety of city information will be "vitally important" to complete.
The details
City Council authorized a contract with Material Holdings, LLC for the webpage overhaul on Nov. 21. Staff said the company is responsible for revamping government websites in California and New York, and private websites like Crain Communications.
Laake said the new-look austintexas.gov should be online in two years, and residents can expect to see a "dramatic change" once it's live.
The contract covers three years of initial work budgeted at $3.52 million for, plus three possible annual extensions at $677,000 each. Material Holdings scored the highest out of more than a dozen applicants to a city solicitation for the project.
