Focus is on easy access to information and services
Finding information on Sacramento County’s public website, www.SacCounty.net, just got easier. The County today unveiled a website upgrade that puts constituents’ needs first, and moves away from the older organizational-based design.
Input from the County’s web users helped drive the direction of the project, according to Board of Supervisors Chair Susan Peters. “The new County home page follows our philosophy of trying to make it easier for people to access information and services. More and more, people want to get what they need quickly and efficiently,” Peters noted. “Going through numerous steps to search for information can be both irritating and frustrating. Our former home page needed to be reorganized. With the help of our users who gave us direct feedback, the redesign meets their needs of a more intuitive site.”
That feedback came in the form of online survey results, focus groups and extensive interviews, where staff heard clearly that constituents didn’t want to have to understand how the County is organized in order get information or access a service. Chief Information Officer David Villanueva praised the efforts of the staff members who analyzed those results and built the site based upon that feedback. “With so many online tools available these days, it’s easy to get caught up in flashy websites that emphasize the visual look over the ease of getting the job done,” Villanueva said. “Research clearly shows, though, that government website users are online to get business done. They want us to be efficient, and drop the government-speak. They also want to know what kinds of services they can access online, and we’ve made it easier for them to conduct county business around the clock, regardless of our operating hours.”
The website redesign was done in-house with County staff rather than contracted out to vendors. In addition to saving significant amounts of money, Chief of E-Government Rami Zakaria said the benefit of a staff-driven redesign came through the entire project. “Our employees are also residents of the area, and users of our services. They are in the best position to know what is important to Sacramento County constituents,” Zakaria said.
The next phase of the upgrade will be to bring County departments into the new design, which will begin in early 2010.