This approach involved investigating:

• How are other people redesigning government websites?
• What are the current best practices?
• What government websites stand out, and why?

For the purpose of this project, I specifically focused on county websites because there seemed to be stricter guidelines for federal agencies. Many counties have there own style, so there a greater degree of design flexibility was allowed.

Many standouts and redesigns involved clean layouts with simpler graphics which created a more modern feel. Additional practices included large banners with basic links and an area(s) to call out important information. The websites felt inviting and clearly engaged with residents (and/or visitors) to make finding announcements or tasks (like how to pay taxes) easy to find.

The websites I analyzed were:

• Sacramento County
• Baltimore County

These counties were selected primarily because they have been selected as examples and been discussed about on a number of articles for having a great design.

Analyzing the current website, I considered the purpose of each element on the page and how they added to the overall user experience. For example, although the main header is important and contains the navigation, it takes up approximately 50% of the screen on a 13" laptop. While this may not be the case for those using larger screens, this is an area for improvement. Additionally, best practices would assume the navigation bar to be closer to the top like many other similar websites.

There is no clear orgnization of the 'I Want To' tab. Similar websites group links together based on the task or type (for example, grouping 'apply for a business license' and 'apply for a marriage license'. This makes searching for information inefficient.

Furthermore, the additional spacing that hides 'Upcoming Meetings and Events' and 'Quick Links'. These are likely very important information, so they should be given greater prominence. Users might also expect announcements to be clearly visible. On the Sacramento County website, at least 50% of the screen is given to news and 30% to other news and important information.

The footer also serves little purpose. Most websites typically contain links and other important information listed below, and first time visitors would likely assume the same as well.

Overall, information is difficult to find due to lack of visibility and clear organization.

Following the user research findings, I identified key requirements for the redesign since the client requirements were open-ended.

• Simplify the current design so that it is cleaner and easier to scroll through
• Let important information stand out
• Highlight the features of the county

The color palette taken from the Hamblen County logo for greater cohesiveness, and to give the page a clearner and more modern feel. The primary font used is Source Sans Pro, with the secondary and header fonts in Roboto Slab. Both fonts are free through Google Fonts for universal usage.

Some major changes included adding information to the footer (like the Courthouse address) and removing the three images featured on the bottom since didn't appear to add much and looked like placeholders images.

For the County Offices pages, I considered how the web content would be managed. I wanted to clearly define the purpose of each section for better orgnization so that each page had a 'template' aspect, and then could be tailored depending on the page requirements. Below are the mockups for the three commission pages. Some of the changes made include:

• Distinguising between 'links' and 'files'
• Removing the accordian menu for questions