BLOOMINGTON – The City of Bloomington today unveiled its updated website, incorporating feedback provided by members of the public during a public testing period last week. The website is available at bloomington.in.gov. From December 3 through 12, public users were invited to explore an alpha-version of the updated site and provide feedback through a survey.
Staff used feedback to inform the iterative development of the alpha website and make changes to the main site.
The changes to the City’s award-winning website include homepage user interface updates, search improvements, events/calendars changes, and a few other minor, but impactful updates. The City’s Information and Technology Services (ITS) team received 35 responses to the survey, which showed the following responses to the updates:
- Updated home page layout was generally well-received, including a new design for alerts.
- General support for a more prominent search function on the homepage and improved search results including new filters to narrow search results.
- Positive response to improved calendar and events presentation on the homepage and the various board and commission pages.
- Respondents confirmed the high value of the site’s mobile-first design given that approximately 50-60% of website users access the website through mobile platforms.
“The City’s website continues to evolve based on community feedback,” said ITS Director Rick Dietz. “We appreciate the very detailed and thoughtful suggestions and feedback users offered. We are happy to release this update to our website, but we’re not finished. Our work on the City’s website is iterative and never totally completed. Look for future updates to the website in 2022.”
The updates reflect an ongoing commitment to the City’s goals of transparency, accountability and accessibility in municipal operations and services, for which the City’s website, mobile apps, and IT operations have been repeatedly recognized, as follows:
- 2021 Digital Inclusion Trailblazer (National Digital Inclusion Alliance)
- 2018 Top Ten Digital Cities (75,000-125,000 category) (Center for Digital Government)
- 2018 Best of Indiana Award for Best Application Serving the Public (Indiana Digital Government Summit) for 2017 website redesign
- 2017/2018 Center for Digital Government’s Digital City Survey
- 2015 Code for America Technology Award, 2016 & 2018 Best of Indiana Award
- First city accepted into Google Summer of Code 2013/2014
