Case Study

The Client

Wantage Township, NJ

The Project

Update a website that had launched in the early 2000s to a more modern design that is responsive and ADA compliant.

The Process

Step 1. Define the audience and goals of the website.
The audience is the residents of the township. The goals of the website are to provide government, municipal, and community information to these residents. To expand the reach of and helpfulness to residents, a business section was added to encourage the patronage of local businesses.

Step 2. Review current site.
Decide what needs to be transferred and what is no longer relevant. Information transferred to new site should retain paths when possible for visitors who may have bookmarked pages. Avoid duplication when possible; have information on a single page rather than same information on several pages for more efficient updating. Site map was created.

Step 3. Design the website.
The redesign was for a clean, uncluttered look. The front page was designed for residents to easily find high priority information and to feature announcements and upcoming events. Decisions were made on what would be included in the header, main menu, quick links section, footer, and the main text area. At this time colors, typeface, and layout were finalized. A slideshow that featured images of the township was placed on the front page. Future plans are for a video to replace the slideshow.

Step 4. Secondary pages.
The design of the municipal pages was first and relatively straightforward: municipal directory, departments, committees, contact information, calendar, minutes, ordinances, resolutions, forms, notices. The community pages involved restructuring: community events are directed to the News, Announcements, and Events page. Due to the lack of communication by groups submitting revisons and updates to the website, the Community Organizations page was streamlined to just a list of groups and their contact information. A form was created for organizations for updating their listed information or for new groups to be added to the page. The business page took longer as research was needed for the content.

Services for this Project

Custom coding for responsive website design, image optimization, calendar, forms, business research, ADA compliance.

More Information about this Project

For more information on this project, please feel free to reach out at jean@jperlee.com.

This site may be viewed at wantagetwp.com