City Of Houston Unveils Sleek, Handy Website Redesign

HOUSTON, TX — The City of Houston's most recent website redesign adds something more than flair, pizazz and snap. It adds functionality and easy navigation.

The city launched its latest website redesign Tuesday with features easier to access, like the jobs page, pet adoptions from BARC, how to pay a ticket, the Houston Police page, information about trash and recycling, and even the most recent allergy forecast.

Oh, it's also translatable in more than 100 languages to reflect the city's dynamic diversity.

"Almost half a million people access the City’s website each month," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. "I want visitors, residents and businesses to have the best experience possible when engaging with the City online."

The new and improved site still holds the same URL of houstontx.gov.

The redesign was accomplished with in-house resources at no extra cost to taxpayers, according to a news release. A taskforce led by the Mayor’s Office of Communications, Office of Innovation and Houston Information Technology Services Department oversaw the project, which would typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if done by an outside contractor.

Turner asked for community input on the site design through the first-of-its-kind Digital Design Challenge, where three finalists were selected to present their vision for the City’s online presence to him. Brand Ranch Media, Don Suttajit, and Think Thank Ideas were selected to suggest ideas for the new website design.

Enhancements were also made to allow for better navigation via mobile devices. More than half of all users now access the site from their cell phones and tablets.

The new site features improvements to ADA compliance, language access and general usability.

Houston stands as the only city in the Top 10 most populous in the United States that has manual translations for many of its most-accessed webpages, and the new site adds an automatic translation feature for over 100 languages.

"Launching a website that celebrates the diversity and welcoming nature of our City was a priority to me," Turner said. "We now have a site that works for everyone."

The city will also launch a new web governance policy in the coming weeks to ensure pages are maintained with uniformity and content is updated regularly.

"We are making every effort to establish the City of Houston as a global leader in technology and innovation," the Mayor said, "our website exemplifies the spirit of Houston and shows our commitment to making technology work for all Houstonians."

Photo via houstontx.gov