{"id":22707,"date":"2019-01-17T12:04:14","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T17:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22707"},"modified":"2019-01-17T12:04:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T17:04:14","slug":"website-upgrade-aimed-at-increasing-online-municipal-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/website-upgrade-aimed-at-increasing-online-municipal-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Website upgrade aimed at increasing online municipal services"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A $70,000 upgrade to the Town of Aurora\u2019s website is aimed to increase online services available to residents.
\nCouncil gave the formal green light to the upgrade project at the last Council meeting, paving the way for a project that was tentatively approved in last year\u2019s budget.
\nAccording to Stephanie Mackenzie-Smith, the Town\u2019s Manager of Corporate Communications, the upgraded website would increase online services and tools available to residents, make it more user-friendly, increase security, and better position the Town to promote programs that generate revenue.
\n\u201cDuring the 2018 Capital Budget deliberations, Council provided conditional approval of $70,000 to redevelop the Town of Aurora website,\u201d said Ms. Mackenzie-Smith. \u201cThe capital budget request came as a result of Council expressing the need for website improvements as a result of comments from residents.\u201d
\nAccording to her report, the current municipal website was built in 2015 for $70,000, built in conjunction with a similar website for the Town of Aurora, and hosted by the latter.
\nThe result was a website with \u201cmultiple challenges\u201d relating to not only usability and navigation, but also back-end technology.
\n\u201c[Based on feedback], the website is not mobile device responsive and requires a third-party service to display website content in a way that is accessible to mobile devices,\u201d she said. \u201cThis service does not work seamlessly for all devices and prevents many website pages and tools from being viewed and used in the appropriate manner when viewed on a mobile device.
\n\u201cThe Town website is one of our primary methods of communication with our community. On a monthly basis, the site sees between 26,000 and 30,000 users with more than 40,000 sessions between them. Approximately 68 per cent of visitors are returning visitors, with 32 per cent being new visitors. The site receives more than 100,000 page views per month with the average user visiting two to three pages for two to three minutes. Approximately one-quarter of all website traffic is via mobile device.\u201d
\nAddressing this issue, a new search function was added to the website last year, she said, and there was consideration given to upgrading the site in 2018, but it was decided to hold off due to \u201cresourcing strains\u201d as well as making changes to the website in the midst of introducing electronic voting.
\nOnce the new website is completed and launched, it will feature a news tool to allow residents to sign up for news alerts, mechanisms to allow the Town to better communicate emergencies such as extreme weather events with residents, integrate social media, and make Place Speak, an app allowing residents to red flag areas of concern across Aurora, more prominent.
\nFor many Council members, a new website has been a long time coming.
\n\u201cI [have been] extremely frustrated with the current system for many years, actually, in terms of searchability,\u201d said Councillor John Gallo, before making a suggestion on what he would like to see featured. \u201cThere are times where there are reports on the website that are scanned in as images and when you\u2019re doing that you can\u2019t search for text. It makes things very frustrating if you\u2019re trying to do a word search, you know it is there, and it just doesn\u2019t pop up. It\u2019s a process we shouldn\u2019t be doing. I am very happy to see what we\u2019re doing there and I am really looking forward to the end result.\u201d
\nAdded Councillor Rachel Gilliland: \u201cI am super-excited about this because I have one heck of a time trying to find things on our website. I am really happy we\u2019re having this upgrade happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A $70,000 upgrade to the Town of Aurora\u2019s website is aimed to increase online services available to residents.
\nCouncil gave the formal green light to the upgrade project at the last Council meeting, paving the way for a project that was tentatively approved in last year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Uf","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 14:01:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}