City of Massillon Website
The City of Massillon's website was significantly outdated and did not function on smartphones, presenting a major challenge for the city. They required a more effective way to disseminate news, events, and city-related information to residents, local businesses, and visitors in a user-friendly manner. Additionally, it was essential for the website to be accessible to individuals with both permanent and temporary disabilities, ensuring compliance with Section 508 requirements for government websites, as well as reaching all residents and visitors. At LaBella Creative, we began by organizing the approximately 200 pages of the site into an easily navigable site map, taking into account three primary groups: residents, businesses, and visitors. We categorized the pages accordingly, alongside government and departmental sections. We also identified the need for a secondary navigation menu at the top of each page to allow residents to quickly access tasks like payment processing. During this evaluation, we discovered additional pages and content that should be incorporated into the new site. After arranging the pages into a site map, we proceeded to create prototypes for key pages to demonstrate content layout. Following city approval, we designed the website interface using their existing branding, developing a color palette that matched their identity and ensured visual accessibility. The pages were then constructed utilizing this color scheme alongside content from the current site and some new additions. From the outset of the design phase through to the final development, we prioritized accessibility. As a result, the City of Massillon now has a website that is easily navigable on desktops, smartphones, and tablets for its diverse residents, visitors, and local businesses, giving the city confidence that the site is accessible to everyone.