Wesley83's Blog

Friday AustinGO joined with the consulting firm SteelSMBology, the executive board of OpenAustin, community partners and City staff including representatives from Communication and Technology Management, Communications and Public Information Office and other City departments to kickoff phase one of the Web redesign project.

SteelSMBology opened the event with a presentation from the creative and technical partners of the firm. SteelSMBology explained their design strategy and presented a roadmap for creating a best-of-class Web site for Austin. (Watch the complete kick off meeting here.)

In addition to SteelSMBology’s presentation, Friday saw the signing of a charter agreement with OpenAustin. The charter creates a strategic alliance between the City of Austin and OpenAustin to implement new technologies and services for the City Web site. OpenAustin was formed by Austin residents with the goal of developing new capacities for City’s Web site while reducing or eliminating costs. If you’re interested in supporting OpenAustin’s efforts, visit their site for more ideas about how to get involved.

It’s taken a while to get here but AustinGO hopes to complete the analysis and evaluation that will be used to create a new Web site design, architecture and policy framework within 6 – 8 months. Phase two will implement these recommendations, but visitors to the City’s Web site will begin to see significant improvements well before then, as we evaluate and redesign various components of the current site.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, ideas or concerns about the project. The easiest way to reach us is by e-mail, but you can also follow us on Twitter or this Web site. Look for some announcements about how you can get involved in this project very soon.

It’s our goal to create the best municipal Web site in Texas and one of the best in the nation, and we can’t wait to get started.

More – much more – very soon.