Strip away the vendor language and the feature lists, and a good municipal website comes down to a handful of qualities. Here’s the definition we’d offer any board weighing a redesign — useful as a yardstick no matter whose platform you choose.
1. Residents find things fast
The site is organized around tasks — pay, apply, report, attend — not around the org chart. The most-needed information is one or two taps from the homepage, and search works even when residents use their own words.
2. It works on the device residents actually use
Most visits happen on phones. A good municipal site is designed for the phone first: readable text, touch-friendly menus, forms you can complete with one thumb, and pages that load quickly on an ordinary connection.
3. Every resident can use it
Accessibility — keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, adequate contrast, well-labeled forms — is built into the platform and protected as staff edit content. Current practice targets WCAG 2.2 AA.
4. Staff can keep it current
This is the quality that keeps all the others alive. If posting an agenda or updating hours takes a support ticket, the site will drift out of date no matter how good it looked at launch. Any trained staff member should be able to handle everyday updates in minutes.
5. It earns trust
Accurate information, current documents, a clean and credible design, and a secure connection. Residents should never wonder whether the schedule they found is still true.
The one-sentence test
A good municipal website is one where a resident on a phone finds what they need without calling town hall — and where your staff keeps it that way without calling anyone either.