Town of Gray
Community Economic Development Committee
Stimson Hall
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Notes
CEDC Special Meeting Notes: July 1, 2009
Attending: Jack Goostray, Lance Tumac, Ed Libby, Jeanne Carpentier, Tracy Scheckel
The CEDC met for a special meeting to continue progress on the town’s website.
Photos from various sites in the community were scrutinized for the banners and the button navigators. Ed Libby agreed to compile the necessary files for the page graphics for use by the programmers at Virtual Town Hall.
The group discussed and decided on using ‘hover menus’ for the navigation buttons on the left of the page, if Virtual Town Hall can support such navigation. The buttons remaining the same are Town Departments, and Town Council, although instead of linking to a new page, the hover menu would provide all the options currently available on those associated pages. It was also decided that in lieu of the graphic town calendar, that there would be a navigation link to it. The Boards and Committees link would provide a hover menu linking to each separate committee, as well as committee rules, applications and vacancies. When linking to an individual committee from the list, the user would be presented with council rules as they apply to that specific committee, the committee members, and links to the most
recent annual report, meeting notes dating back one year, and the most recent meeting agenda.
The remaining navigation buttons include employment, contact us and subscribe. No significant changes to the employment button were proposed. The committee felt that the Contact Us page needed updating and clarification. Currently, depending on the link one uses to get there, a complaint window comes up. The input screen is outdated so the group suggested that the page bring up the users default “compose mail window” instead. The subscribe button also needs work. Of everyone in the room who has subscribed, no one has ever received anything.
The committee discussed ‘additional links’ and suggest that they include schools, state government, news, and weather.
The group also discussed having links in the content area with direct access to codes, ordinances, council rules, town charter, comp plan, village master plan, etc. While all of these docs might appear elsewhere in the site, the committee agreed that the addition of quick access would also be desirable to the user.
The group plans to continue surveying the functionality of each link and the various site destinations associated with each in order to streamline the search ability and functionality of the site.
The group questioned VTH’s ability to remove the blue bar format within the content areas of pages, citing the old fashioned look of the format.
Jeanne has sent a questionnaire to the Town Department Heads with 4 questions. They are:
- Which links do you like or find useful within the site?
- Which links would you like removed or what do you find is not useful in the site?
- List the top Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that you receive on a regular basis which we may add to your department link.
- What improvements would you like to see to your department’s site?
Jeanne has requested feedback by the 7th of July to share at the next committee meeting.
The committee plans to meet again on July 15th for the next regularly scheduled committee meeting to continue the site assessment.
Respectfully submitted,
Tracy Scheckel
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