The Challenge: The City of Tacoma (COT) was looking to redesign their website and find an easy way to consistently keep their content up-to-date. COT’s website consisted of hundreds of pages of content and news to manage – a time-intensive task for City IT employees to update. The disparate web pages for each department also needed a unified look. They also needed an area to post upcoming events, online services, and news updates.

Results/ Metrics: The COT’s clean, intuitive design allows the user to easily move between images, content, navigation, and callouts – including news updates and online services. The juxtaposition of smooth, curving images, a simple grid structure, and a complimentary color palette allow the composition to enhance the content.

BIS built COT a custom Content Management System, allowing City employees to update, add, and delete content, images, links, and callouts within a unified, easy-to-use tool. To ensure content is kept up-to-date, COT now uses a Content Freshness Tool, which allows the page author to determine a specific notification date to review the content. The City also uses an interactive calendar that enables users to search and sort all upcoming events within the area. In addition, they have a custom tool to post upcoming events, online services, and news updates.