WESTFIELD—The city’s much-anticipated revamped website debut has hit a snag and will be delayed.
Lenore Bernashe, information technology manager for the city of Westfield, said that the website’s debut will be delayed for at least two weeks after glitches have been found in the development phase of the site. It was originally scheduled to be released today.
“It’s been delayed due to production difficulties,” Bernashe said. “We are still finding issues and concerns.”
The city is working with CivicPlus, a government website design company, on producing the new site. However, both sides have been finding problems with the site and in addition, CivicPlus has been working on multiple different municipality sites, not just Westfield’s, which is also slowing the process down.
Lenore Bernashe
Bernashe said that once the new website is finished however, it should have an improved interface and overall functionality for users.
“Our new front page will have snapshot highlight articles, which would be specialized news articles from construction updates to current events to events of interest,” she said.
In addition, Bernashe said that there will be a larger focus put on the calendar function of the site. Currently, the calendar tab is accessible, though you have to click on it and you are only provided with a small sampling of the city’s events. The new calendar will also provide both community and governmental goings on, which are currently separate.
The site will also feature a new option to help those who can’t quite figure out what they need to do for projects or how to contact someone for assistance.
“We added a new tab called ‘How Do I’ to make it easier to apply for permits, submit forms, find departments or personnel,” Bernashe said.
Also, the website will allow for even more customization for users with the “My Dashboard” option.
“Individuals can create their own account on our website, so they can personalize what items they see first, what items they can flag,” Bernashe said.
This option is a carry-over from the current website, but will be much improved.
Finally, for the many of us who use our cell phones and mobile devices to access the site, that version of the page will also be updated.
“The mobile interface for the website, that’s an improvement,” Bernashe said. “That’s been updated and it’s just an overall more modern look and feel to the website.”
