In today’s social media society, a user friendly website is a necessity to creating clear communication for a local community or city. To research more about this, I looked into my own city’s website and their tools for user communication.
Immediately when clicking on “Welcome to Village of Armada”, users view a photo of the Armada’s downtown strip. As a very small town, this is only a few buildings. This photo attempts to cut out all the vehicles parked near the buildings and seems to be taken in the middle of the day. It is sunny and there is a banner in the upper left corner reading “Armada Pride.” There are no people in the photo and no action in the image.
When users continue to scroll down, they can read a short overview of the village of Armada, scroll through “latest events”, view a map and see both the address and phone number of the village office. Clicking through website tabs and links, readers can view different departments, area business links, and a tab for visitors to view history and photos. Of all the photos on the website, there are none of people. There is an FAQ section for residents and a search bar at the top of the website for users.
Overall this website isn’t terrible, but it definitely needs an update. I would recommend a cleaner theme or design to make the website more pleasing to the eye. While there are social media icons on the left-hand side of the website, they do not link to Armada’s pages. These should be linked to Armada’s social media pages so users can view events, photos or more current content.
I would also recommend posting photos of city officials along with their professional contact information so residents can contact them about local issues. There should also be a “Contact Us” button to send general email questions or concerns. Instead of having a “latest events” area on the homepage, the website should like to a Facebook list of events. More and more Facebook users like to view events and click “attend” on Facebook events and it has become a great way to spread information and interest. In my searching, I found two different Facebook pages that could be run by the local government but they are both fairly unused and outdated. I would also recommend a clear Facebook page for Armada with regular updates at least twice a week.
Somewhere on the site, I would recommend posting a photo of the village office. This will let viewers know where to find the office if they ever have questions or need to visit the location.
Lastly, I would recommend a sliding photo banner as the homepage photo. Each photo could showcase a popular place in the town with people enjoying their surroundings or general activity in the photo. There should also be an accurate representation of the people in the area based on gender, age and race. Below I have attached some stock photos from Google images that I would use as a reference to the kind of photos that will make viewers more interested in the website.
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