City of Bend: Website Content Refresh/Redesign
The City of Bend is a municipal government that provides a wide array of services and information for the community—navigating its website to find these services was a challenge.
Roles
Project Owner / UX Designer / Researcher / Content Manager
Team Size
3
Platform
Web
Tool Stack
Miro / Figma / Microsoft CoPilot / Optimal Workshop / Google Analytics / GovAccess
Background
[Need to add.]
Ongoing Work
We are continuing to work through the remaining pages on the site as we prepare to move to a new CMS in winter 2025.
View the progress at bendoregon.gov.
Research & Roadblocks
We kicked off the project with user research with the help of Sitecrafting to determine more concretely where we needed to focus our efforts to improve our site.
Content Audit
Inventory of all 1000+ pages and actions to take for each. Overall, there are too many pages and too much text content on each.
Sitemapping
Our site was originally structured the way the City is structured internally, so when navigating the site, visitors were required to first know who performs a particular service in order to find that service. We are now rebuilding the site from a service-oriented perspective, grouping all content related to a particular process or service together in a way that makes sense to the community.
Page-by-Page IA Mapping
Once the new sitemaps were finalized and approved, we began page level audits.
Using Miro, we mapped out the content as it existed on each page using sticky notes. We then grouped the stickies and organized them in a more logical flow to align with identified user journeys.
Implementation
Improved UI via New Page Templates
Once the new IA was determined, I built new page templates to fit the new structure. Below is a screenshot of the updated Utility Billing landing page. What used to be confusing and difficult for site visitors to navigate is now much easier. Since the launch of the new page, visitors are able to get to the services they need—to log in to their account or pay a bill—42% quicker than the same period last year.