Think you have a good municipal website?
Use the following checklist to do a quick evaluation.
Test your website (yes-1, no-0)
____Meeting information: date, time, location, agenda
____Minutes: last meeting and archived minutes
____Current municipal budget
____Bulletins & public notices
____Design that is pleasant and inviting
____Page Layout that is easy to understand
____Information presently concisely so no need for continuous scrolling
____E-mail subscriber
____Downloadable forms
____Contact phone/fax numbers
____Department information
____Contact e-mail addresses
____Physical address of town, village or city hall
____Search capability
____Site map
____Link to Home page on every page
____Links all work
____Consistent design (headers, footers, navigation bar, etc)
____Online services (give yourself 1 point for each)
Bill payment
Recreation registration
Property assessment lookup
Geographic Information System (GIS)
Online permit processing
Access birth/death/marriage records
____ Total Score
We've helped more than 230 communities, in 12 states, create powerful, easy-to-manage websites.
Note: The website evaluation is based on work done by the Community Benchmarks Program, The Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Thanks to Carol Dwyer for permission to use and quote from the report.
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