BELCHERTOWN — The town of Belchertown launched its new and improved website, inviting all residents to explore it and view its new features. Vice Chair Ed Comeau of the Belchertown Communications Committee said, “The new site officially launched on July 10 and it has a really fresh look to it, but more importantly, it is much easier to update the information on it on the backend.”
He continued, “That was one of the big drawbacks to the old site, it was difficult for town employees and the committee volunteers to update their pages, so they were often out of date and people just didn’t come to the site. The new system is much easier, and our goal is that it will become a central portal for official, current information for everyone.”
Key features of the new website include:
- Enhanced Navigation: Streamlined menus and improved search functionality make it easier for users to find the information they need.
- Mobile-Friendly Design: The site is optimized for mobile devices, allowing residents to access information on-the-go.
- Interactive Tools: Online forms, event calendars, and news updates enhance communication between the town administration and residents.
- User-Friendly Back-End: The new system simplifies the process for town employees to update information, ensuring timely and accurate updates.
This project has been about a year in the making. The Communications Committee conducted a survey of a number of Massachusetts towns to see what they were using, along with another survey done by the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association, and CivicPlus was the website provider everyone was using.
Communication Committee Chair Chris Martin said, “The new CivicPlus platform is a modern-day content management system that is much faster, easier to use, and far more flexible than our previous system. Plus, it came with a lot of great features out of the box, like an accessibility tool for users, multitab calendars, document and agenda centers for quick search, and NotifyMe, which allows users to sign up for email or text updates by department or committee.”
Martin told Reminder Publishing they had a core working group, consisting of IT Director Kevin Hannon, Town Manager Steve Williams, Town Clerk Theresa Camerlin, DPW Administrative Assistant Donna Lusignan, Communication Committee Vice Chair Ed Comeau, and himself. They met with designers and usability experts early on to identify the Belchertown brand and key issues they had with the previous site, and CivicPlus took it from there. They designed everything but the photos donated by town residents, migrated all the content from the previous site to the new one, and organized much of their content to make it easier to find. They spent three days training members of each department in town so they can manage their own sections. They then spent a month updating and polishing content before launching the site. In all, it took about seven months.
“The goal all along was to create a hub of information for all things Belchertown,” Martin said. “Residents have been struggling with transparency and misinformation because the old site wasn’t easily accessible and difficult to update. By updating the navigation, adding new features to highlight content, and making it easy for departments or committees to update their sections of the site, information should constantly flow out of town hall. This should ultimately make it easier for residents, local businesses, and more to get what they need, when they need it.”
The Communication Committee is currently working on a town wide communication plan that’s going to focus heavily on the new site and include goals on how to improve it in the next five years. Visit belchertown.org to stay updated on town events and access a wide range of information and services.
