Orange City Council has launched a new-look website with greatly improved functionality and aesthetics.
The new website design should allow residents and visitors to more quickly and easily access information, make a request and give feedback.
And it is certainly a vast improvement on Council’s previous, quite dated web presence.
The new website remains at the same address (www.orange.nsw.gov.au) and is mobile-device friendly, SSL secured, which means all data passed between the web server and browsers remains private, and it has improved speed and page loading times.
The six main buttons on the front page — Employment, DA Tracking, Report It, Pay for It, Forms and Events — were chosen based on the six most common pages people visited.
The menu was structured in a similar way, with priority given to how the user navigates the website and that structure can be changed as more user data is collected over the new few months.
And the new website was done completely in-house, which means Council has saved money, said Orange City Mayor Reg Kidd.
“It has all the bells and whistles and better reflects Orange and its community,” Cr Kidd said.
“We wanted to get this site up and running as soon as possible, that means there will be a few bits and pieces which need a tweak over the coming weeks and months.
Cr. Kidd said staff will be continually updating the website based on customer feedback.
“So, if you have a suggestion please let us know by submitting your feedback via the website,” he said.
Council advises that several new features will be launched in the coming weeks.