New website launched for city of Fort Smith

Fort Smith has a new look.

The city turned on its new website Tuesday (Sept. 14), and presented the new look to the Fort Smith board of directors during their Tuesday study session.

“This morning, the proverbial switch was thrown,” Russell Gibson, head of information technology for the city, told the board before a quick 5-minute presentation of the new website.

Gibson said all the worked was handled internally, with no fees paid to outside consultants or designers. He said the biggest chore was in converting “years and years of legacy data” from the old to the new website.

The website look and function was first presented to the board in April with expectations it would go live by June. Last-minute content review and feedback and a desire to give the board a look held up the launch.

“Essentially the site itself was ready in June, sans some final feedback and final content review and submission on behalf of each department’s content manager. Those items were finalized by mid-July,” Gibson explained in a brief e-mail interview with The City Wire. “Other than that the only other issue was a desire on behalf of Administration to hold official launch until we were able to show the site in a public meeting to the Board of Directors. The website redesign was initiated by the Board and it was felt that they should be among the first to see it go live.”

The new look provides continuity in appearance and navigation in what Gibson describes as a “one-look container,” in which one to two clicks is usually all it takes to find information. For example, the website features an “I want to” drop-down menu at the top of the website that allows visitors to easily contact the police or fire department, pay a water bill, find a city park, review board meetings and see the city calendar — just to name a few possibilities.

Part of the website devoted to city board meetings includes a quick link to see video broadcasts of board meetings.

Gibson said one of the many improved features is a calendar that should make it easy for citizens to learn about events and meetings held by the city or in the convention center.

However, the website is not entirely seamless. The city’s water and sanitation departments continue to maintain separate websites. During his April preview, Gibson said he hoped the departments would want to move to the new website when they see its improved look and function.

As of Tuesday, Gibson remains unsure when all city departments will be under the new web umbrella.

That will be a decision made by the respective department heads and, administration,” Gibson explained. “We have talked to Steve Parke (director of utilities) and he has expressed an interest in moving his site to the new City site. However there isn’t a time table for Utilities migrating their content at this time.”