Westport Seeks Opinions On Town Website

WESTPORT, CT — The town plans to upgrade its website in 2017, and officials are seeking comments from residents about the redesign.

The site will be designed and coded to be usable on smartphones and tablets, as well as desktops, but first officials ask that you fill out the seven questions on a survey to help decide what to include. The survey can be viewed at www.westportct.gov/websurvey

"This is a major undertaking for Westport’s Office of Information Technology, involving redesign, development, and external hosting of the new town website," said First Selectman Jim Marpe in a statement. "To assist in the successful accomplishment of this project, I have assembled a Town Website Redevelopment Steering Committee that will participate in the process and offer guidance and oversight from vendor selection through website implementation and rollout. The Committee consists of a group of highly experienced internal and external Information Technology professionals along with representatives of major town user departments and the RTM’s IT committee. I encourage all Westporters to respond to this brief questionnaire."

Added Eileen Zhang, Director of the Westport Office of Information Technology, "Web technology has come a long way since we last redesigned the website in 2011. Our designers will use latest standards such as HTML5 and CSS3 to ensure that the site is responsive no matter what device you are using."

According to Zhang, more viewers are using smartphones to access websites, and that this is important for people on the go.

Denver, CO-based Granicus has been awarded the contract to design and host the website, one of the leading firms in technology solutions for government.

"We’ll be starting the design phase shortly, and want to launch the website by the end of this year," said Zhang. "We’ve very excited about the opportunity to have a fully responsive website for all of our mobile users. We look forward to working with the Westporters who are serving on our Committee."

Click here to view Westport's municipal website and the survey.