The City of Rehoboth Beach launched its new website, rehobothbeachde.gov, today. The city’s official website has a fresh look, updated content, more responsive mobile view, new address, and streamlined navigation as well as an AI-assisted search to serve digital users.
“Our previous website served the city well for the past decade and more,” says Communications Manager Lynne Coan, “but it was definitely time for an update. We hope that our residents, visitors, and business owners who use the city’s website will find it not only attractive, but effective in finding the information they seek. We’ve incorporated images and graphics, drop-downs and accordions, and a friendly, function-focused navigation system to assist our digital visitors.”
The city has worked over the past year to develop its fully custom website with Planeteria, a California-based website development firm. Total cost for website development is $55,900, with an additional $12,000 committed annually for maintenance and training of the AI search function.
The City of Rehoboth Beach decided to utilize the launch of its newly designed website to make the switch from a .com domain to a .gov website. Reserved for official government entities, the .gov domain signals that a website represents a legitimate and authorized government agency.
The new site incorporates information about the Rehoboth Beach Patrol, which largely was contained on a separate website from the city’s site previously. What has not changed is the use of a Legislative Portal subsite for information about and links to meeting agendas, minutes, and documents. The more robust calendar on the city’s new site integrates with the city’s Legislative Portal so that public meetings also are featured on the calendar. Language translation options and a widget to enhance website accessibility for people with disabilities have been built into the new site.
“We know that there’s going to be a learning curve for our regular website users, who knew exactly where to find the information they were looking for on the old site,” says Coan. “Overall, we hope that users will find the new site to be friendly, intuitive, and easily navigable. We believe that user satisfaction of the city’s website will be enhanced. We’ve provided a quick emoji-based survey on several webpages so users can let us know what they think of the new site.”
Source: City of Rehoboth Beach