[Durham INC] City of Durham Launches Updated Website

[PublicAffairs]

[Title: City of Durham Office of Public Affairs logo]
News Media Contact
Beverly B. Thompson, Public Affairs Director
919.560.4123 x11229 | 919.475.2362 (mobile)
Beverly.Thompson at DurhamNC.gov

News Release
For Immediate Release: June 24, 2020

City of Durham Launches Updated Website

DURHAM, N.C. – When you visit the City of Durham’s website, https://DurhamNC.gov, you will now notice it has a new look and improvements to make it easier to use.

The refreshed website is the result of months of planning and collecting feedback with the goal of updating the design and making it easy to access top information and tasks. Residents will notice a cleaner design incorporating the City’s brand colors, updated navigation options at the top of the site, and the use of icons to highlight popular information throughout the site. The site is also responsive and will resize for display on mobile devices, and uses Google Translate to provide translation of pages.

In April 2019, the City used an online survey to collect feedback from the public as well as City staff on how the website could be improved. This input was then used to help shape the project along with comments from the website feedback form, review of web analytics and inspiration sites, and assistance from Code for Durham volunteers.

Despite the impact of COVID-19, the City was able to keep the project on schedule, which was led by the City’s Office of Public Affairs and Technology Solutions Department with input and assistance from all 25 City departments. The redesign project is part of the City’s existing web contract, which includes a visual update every five years with design and development by Civic Plus, the City’s website vendor since 2007.

The site continues to live on the DurhamNC.gov<https://durhamnc.gov/> domain and most bookmarks should continue to work, although some pages have been moved or removed in the clean up process. If you have any trouble finding what you need, send your feedback using our website feedback form<https://durhamnc.gov/FormCenter/Technology-Solutions-29/Website-Feedback-Form-203> and we will help you get to the information.

According to Public Affairs Director Beverly B. Thompson, the City’s website is a vital communication and engagement tool for the organization. “We know our website is an important communication and information hub for residents, and since COVID-19, our views have been up 36% which makes that even more clear,” said Thompson. “We have to be accessible in multiple ways to help our residents get information and communicate with their City government. Our website serves a vital role in this engagement process since it’s a tool that is accessible 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week from anywhere around the world.”

The website is one of the City’s most-used digital platforms with 899,355 users and 4.2 million page views in 2019. According to Thompson, the redesign is a big step in updating the site, and additional work will continue to review and improve top-visited pages and documents, and continue accessibility training and improvements. “Our website is easily one of the ‘go-to’ sites to find information about Durham and City government,” said Thompson. “We worked hard to ensure this design update kept our users in mind, that the functionality is fairly intuitive, and that most users will be able to quickly find the information they’re seeking.”

Feedback on the updated website can be provided through the City’s website feedback form<https://durhamnc.gov/FormCenter/Technology-Solutions-29/Website-Feedback-Form-203>.

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[Title: City of Durham Office of Public Affairs contact information]

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