PMC provided a complete redesign of the City of Santa Monica’s website. The project included many stakeholders, variant designs for each department, integration with existing systems and databases, and training of a large group of content authors and administrators. The site was built and implemented in the Ektron CMS 400.NET. A soft launch began with the homepage in July 2008, with new department pages being launched almost weekly.
Department Creativity and Site-wide Consistency
We’ve accomplished consistency by instituting a common page width, header configuration, footer, font, and left and/or top navigation structure. Departments have the power to change all the colors, images, backgrounds, and body content of their pages. Many unique-looking sites have come from this, yet they still retain a common bond to each other through consistent elements.
Contact Information and FAQs
Our lead programmer converted the City Directory, an ever-changing “phone book” of cross-referenced departments and services, into an elegant click-to-reveal widget anchored at the base of each page. When open, it reveals tailored FAQs and the directory searchable by Department/Program, Alphabetical, Service Type, and City Facilities & Other Destinations.
Direction, Design, and Implementation Process
The client created a schedule and PMC created a process flow. The department meets among themselves and completes a questionnaire detailing their design and content preferences, PMC’s designers create a PDF of the design, revisions are made, an HTML/ASPX model is made, reviewed and revised, then finally the design is ported into the CMS and delivered to the client. The client may then enter their content while learning the system on a development server. PMC is available to answer questions and provide additional training and guidance where needed.