Beginning today, visitors to guelph.ca will see a completely redesigned website that will make it easier for everyone to access City services and information online.
The new site includes a smoother navigation menu, direct links to the City’s social media channels, and new RSS feeds for readers who want to subscribe to timely updates.
Accessibility features include the ability to increase font size, use keyboard navigation, have content spoken aloud (where possible), and have the page layout automatically resize to suit desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
Guelph.ca now uses WordPress, which is a free and open-source web software chosen by millions of people worldwide.
“The city’s website hasn’t had a major upgrade since 2007 and the WordPress platform allows us to improve the site by leveraging its global acceptance while meeting the province’s requirements for accessibility,” Moez Mehdi, manager of IT Projects and Service Management.
As a municipality, the City is required under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act to make its new website and web content accessible by January 1, 2014.
The redesign process has been a significant undertaking for the City and is the culmination of more than a year of work. Using in-house staff resources, about 1,700 pages and 22,000 documents have been converted to the new website format.
The new guelph.ca is compatible with Internet Explorer 8+ and modern web browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox.