City of Salina website has a new look. Here's how it makes residents' city business easier

Seven years since its last update, the website for the City of Salina has a whole new look, with an upgrade that launched recently.

The updated site, still located at www.salina-ks.gov, was constructed by GovBuilt, a Manhattan-based software company, and was created with the purpose of serving citizens more effectively.

“It has been a long time in the making,” said Salina City Manager Mike Schrage. “(The website) will provide our citizens easier access to information about their city. With new features and a new look, we hope to elevate the ease of website navigation and provide more value to our citizens"

For those who helped make the new site a reality, it is nice to see how the difference in the function of it is now compared to before.

"We wanted to shift it from more on an informational website to more of a transactional website," said David Hawksworth, multimedia specialist for the city. "It makes it easier to do business with the city."

This interactivity of the new design will, in some ways, lessen the need for citizens to have to do business in person with staff.

"It's almost a virtual city building," said James "Cash" Curtis, multimedia coordinator. "Obviously there's (still) the physical location, but if you need your answers quicker, you have a virtual location for it."

Ease of access to city resources

While the process of updating the city website has been discussed since before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shift in the way people think about how business can be done.

"People want to do things on their own, and not be restrained by business hours," Hawksworth said. "You can apply for something online ... at two in the morning (if you want)."

One of the biggest changes people will notice is the addition of several links to frequently requested items from the website. including videos of commission and board meetings, registration for parks and recreation programming, fillable forms and applications for various permits and licenses and a very popular item, paying a water bill online.

"Paying the water bill is the number two, besides the homepage, page visited on the website," Hawksworth said.

Hawksworth said certain things on the previous website, like links to the city commission's agendas and minutes, were fairly difficult to find.

"We tried to make it easier for people to find those kinds of pieces of information," Hawksworth said.

Another addition to the site is the use of digital media, such as video, easily accessible news updates and press releases from the city and a calendar of city events and meetings, all of which is available on the homepage.

Accessibility an important aspect of the upgrade

In addition to making the city website easier to navigate and information the public wants and needs easier to find, options for accessibility have also been added.

"We definitely have to be cognizant of that," Curtis said. "The government is for everybody, so (we have to look at) how to get the news to each population as best (we) can."

A whole accessibility menu is now available with options including contrast settings, link highlights, larger and bigger spacing of text, dyslexia-friendly fonts and more.

This feature was not an afterthought when it came time to designing and creating the new site.

"That definitely was a spec in the request for proposals (that went out), that it had to be (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant," Hawksworth said.

Not only is accessibility compliance important for a government, but features like this are becoming the norm for modern websites.

"This is just (the city) keeping up with the times and the technology (available)," Curtis said.

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Features and updates will continue to roll out

While the new City of Salina website is up and running, there will still be a few things and features added as needed.

Hawksworth said part of the contract that the city has with GovBuilt means it won't be another seven years before the site is updated again.

"The deal with the company ... is that they'll give us a free redesign after four years," Hawksworth said.

Curtis said the whole purpose of maintaining and updating things within the city government, including technology like the website, is to make sure the populace is getting the best and most up-to-date information, as well as staying involved.

"A lot of times people just see the city as this entity that is a bit standoffish from its citizens," Curtis said. "That is the intention, to make (the website) something that's part of the process of being (more) engaging with the community."

This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Salina launches updated city government website