The City of Grand Forks selected Pro-Creative Design Lab to develop its new website earlier in the year and the fruits of that labour are now available.
The city went live with the new site last week and according to Corporate Officer Diane Heinrich, it is a lot cleaner than the previous website.
“I believe it’s likely going to be easier to find things; it’s going to be a lot more user-friendly,” Heinrich explained.
Of the many differences between the old website and the new – besides more modern look and easier navigation – is a blog section for councillors.
As of Monday, there was only one entry but as time passes, city councillors will have the opportunity to take advantage.
“It’s a feature that’s just in its infancy right now but there will be opportunities for council to put on its own individual messages,” said Grand Forks’ corporate officer.
The city will also have the ability to add additional features and plug-ins to the website, including video-playing capabilities.
“We’ve talked to Pro-Creative about (video) and we should have no problem at all putting in some small videos,” said Heinrich.
“We would have to get some training to be able to put them in ourselves but it’s something that we’ve thought about. It’s going to be something that develops as we go.”
The colour yellow is also prominent and takes up approximately the top-third of the page.
“The committee we had formed for the city was looking at all the different templates that Pro-Creative had put out and it liked the sunny colour, it kind of represents Grand Forks – it has all the sunshine and everything,” Heinrich said.
“We figured why not make the page look like that too. We had basically just mentioned the colour and Pro-Creative put together that design for us. It melded together and thought it was pretty good.”
The city said that it budgeted $10,000 for the project back in March.