Power to the People: The DC Council Website Redesign
During the summer of 2011, the Council of the District Columbia, the group responsible for crafting laws and improving the quality of life for over half a million residents in the District of Columbia, hired Blue State Digital to lead a redesign effort and completely overhaul their website’s content organization, design, and back-end content management system.
The Council’s website is a vital resource for District constituents looking for general information on their elected officials, current legislation and ways to get involved in the legislative process. Understanding the Council’s audience was crucial to creating a new and more effective web design. As part of this redesign process, BSD worked with Council staff, policymakers, journalists and citizens to build an online platform that clearly articulates the complex relationships of government and the legislative process.
Blue State Digital’s content strategy team spent weeks analyzing the organization and flow of content throughout the Council’s site. Based upon our findings, we simplified the navigation to give users clear pathways to important sections. On the backend, we consolidated content types and combined templates to reduce the time needed to upload and manage content. Designers on the project collaborated with the DC Council team to create a clean, open and user-friendly design that complements the site’s revised content and information architecture.
One of the major goals of the redesign was to create an open and accessible website that empowers users to follow and participate in the legislative process. The resulting website, built in Expression Engine and powered by the BSD Tools, now allows counsel staff to post content once, using one form, and have it appear on multiple pages throughout the site, which gives them a scalable foundation that can meet the needs of current and future constituents.
Users can now register to testify at legislative hearings online, track multiple content channels via RSS, follow meetings, hearings and other legislative events on a new calendar, and see how their council member voted on recent bills. The new look-and-feel of the site provides a more open and approachable browsing experience for the visitor. The open layout with lots of white space breaks down a text-dense page into small, easily digestible blocks of information.
Additionally, the BSD Design team took this opportunity to redesign the seal of DC Council. Taking inspiration from the District’s flag, we used san serif font and an added splash of color to give the seal a more modern look.
