RED ROCK—The Municipality of Red Rock held their council meeting July 18, 2022. Among the items on their agenda was the presentation by MNP Digital who was retained by the municipality to conduct a review of their present township’s website.
The purpose of this review was to assess and identify opportunities to modernize the Township of Red Rock’s website and online service, in order to provide an easier, more streamlined online service for staff, the general public, residents, and future visitors.
According to representatives, Lisa Apprentice and Lisa Page, from MNP Digital, their review was made up of two phases. Phase one was their review and phase two was their recommendations.
Lisa Apprentice indicated that as part of the process of review, they met with key stakeholders, and surveyed the community to understand their needs. This was also to determine what some of the challenges were in using the current township website.
“We wanted to determine how they used the site and any challenges they found and things to consider regarding redesigning the site,” said Apprentice.
Key factors the review considered about the website included: if it was user friendly, how relevant to users, its accessibility to people of all abilities and how to make the content more understandable for everyone accessing it.
Apprentice also spoke about the technology factor surrounding the website. In her view it was also important for the municipality to consider how the website works on a mobile device, be it a phone or a tablet.
The MNP Digital presenters provided city council with their recommendations which included items such as:
- To redesign the website so it has the ability to deliver and maintain up to date information
- To explore how stakeholders are able to interact with the township using various technologies
- To look at how the township can complete the redesign and implementation of the new website
- To go through the process of setting standards and put policies into place to guide how to want to use the website and how the data will be managed.
As part of the concluding elements of their final report to city Council Lisa Apprentice added as another recommendation, “the procurement of a vendor to help the township design and implement the new website and online service platform,” added Apprentice.
Ultimately the review by MNP Digital indicated the importance for the township need to look at what type of information they want to have on the website that would be pertinent to the community, as well as the types of services they would want to provide access to.
