You don’t need to be a web expert to evaluate your town’s website. Set aside twenty minutes, grab your phone, and work through this checklist the way a resident would. Be honest — the goal is a clear picture, not a passing grade.
The resident test (do these on your phone)
- Can you find today’s office hours in under 30 seconds?
- Can you find the next board meeting — and the agenda for it?
- Can you find and download one common form (dog license, building permit, records request)?
- Can you figure out how to pay a bill, or who to ask?
- Does site search find “trash,” “taxes,” and “clerk”?
- Is every page readable without pinch-zooming?
The content test
- Are the newest minutes on the site from the most recent meeting?
- Is every person listed still in that role?
- Are there expired notices or events still posted?
- Do any links lead to error pages?
The staff test
- Can more than one person on staff update the website?
- Can you post a notice yourself, today, without calling anyone?
- Do routine changes cost money or take days?
- Do you know who to call when something breaks — and do they answer?
Scoring it honestly
A few misses are normal — every site has them. But if the resident test fails on a phone, or your staff can’t make routine updates on their own, those aren’t cosmetic issues. They’re structural, and they’re worth fixing at the platform level rather than patching one page at a time.