The City of Haverhill recently launched a new website intended to serve information faster and make navigation and maintenance easier.
Douglas Russell, the city’s director of technology, said GovStack, a website design company based in Australia, won the bid to design the new site. The city paid $24,000 for initial site design and construction and will pay an annual maintenance fee of $3,840. He said the city signed a three-year agreement. The web address HaverhillMA.gov has not changed.
“We went with a company that has lots of experience with government websites,” he said. “Government websites tend to be very data intensive. We noticed that as we added more pages, the old website had really slowed down.”
Russell said the new site, which the city rolled out on May 1, has been optimized for use on smart phones and should require fewer clicks to find specific information. Additionally, when the website opens, it invites users to sign up for time-sensitive emergency alerts from the city. Users can decide how to receive alerts whether on cell phone, via email or text.
Russell said not only is the new website easier to navigate, it should be easier for department heads to update information about their departments in a timelier fashion.
“Right now, the department heads are being trained but once they get the hang of it, we think everyone will find it much easier to use,” Russell said. He said the new site is fully compliant with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The new website took six months to design and Russell said bugs are still being worked out. “If you see one, we want to know about it,” he said.