MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - County council has been given an update on work underway to update the municipality’s website, with councillors told that the new site will be much more use-friendly for residents with slower internet connections.
The overview came during the recent council meeting, held in person and on Zoom. Internet connection in some rural areas of the county are notoriously slow, particularly on the far west side of the county, council heard.
In August, the county awarded a contract to redesign the county’s corporate website and develop two affiliated micro-sites for economic development and tourism to All-Net Solutions.
“Administratively it was decided that it was desirable to choose the corporate site addition because it was due for a refresh from its 2016 build, and this option would ensure the corporate site and micro-sites were affiliated, interactive and administered by the county,” said Chris Atchison, director of legislative services.
The costs of the contact are $16,470 for one year, including redevelopment of the corporate website and development of the two micro-sites, hosting costs and support.
As well, there is a $6,970 cost annually for years two through four for a total four-year cost of $37,380 for hosting, support and other costs.
“Early stages of the project focused on ensuring All-Net could deliver on the specialty function of our website within the project cost, particularly the fire permit portal which features an intricate functionality to upload directly to Red Deer fire dispatch,” he said.
“Other functions to review include the permit portal function, the assessment inquiry function and our online forms.”
The micro-sites will focus on economic development “to support our entire business community” and other focused on tourism-focused businesses.
“For instance, if you were planning a wedding you’d be able to find an events centre and then it would feature some of the caterers that are available in the county, transportation available in the county, etcetera,” he said.
“It will start to be the interconnectivity between the businesses, which is very important to the overall project.”
Work is currently focused on the corporate site with work in the micro-sites to follow, he said.
Counc. Greg Harris asked if things are being done to ensure residents with slower internet connections won’t be unduly slowed opening pages.
“Is there something we can do to put out generic information so that people in the poorer served areas can actually access?”
Atchison said, “We’ve heard that from the last council fairly loud and clear that they want our corporate site to be easy to navigate, easy to use in all areas of the county and we’ve really tried to take that forward. There isn’t flashy elements of this package.
“We’ve tried to keep the corporate site as basic as possible. A big difference between this (new) site and our existing site is the amount of clicks you are going to have to drive down into to get information. A lot more of the information is right on the main site.”
The next step in the website project will be to finalize the design and proceed to site development, he said, noting a follow-up report will come before council in the new year.
Council accepted the administration report as information.
