Harpswell’s new page includes modern stylings, including an emphasis on photos and visual icons. Screenshot from harpswell.maine.gov
Fifteen years after the town website’s last facelift, Harpswell launched its redesigned page last week. Officials hope the new website will make finding information and accessing town resources easier for residents who increasingly demand online services.
“I think it will draw more people,” Town Administrator Kristi Eiane said. “It’s much better organized and more visually stimulating.”
Harpswell’s plans for a new website grew out of the pandemic, which pushed residents with government business out of the Town Office and onto the internet. The Select Board-created Technology and Communications Task Force searched for ways to improve Harpswell’s remote communications capabilities and quickly zeroed in on the town website and its mid-2000s design.
Sporting wide margins, walls of text and an abundance of hyperlinks, the website was both unattractive and difficult to navigate, Deputy Town Administrator Terri Gaudet said. Worse, it was difficult to update, making it time consuming for town staff to alert residents to important news.
Harpswell’s old design was text- and hyperlink-dense, which made it difficult to navigate and update. Source: Wayback Machine
The new design features a sleeker, more intuitive layout with larger pictures and more visual cues to help point users in the right direction, while making editing easier than ever for staff.
“Harpswell isn’t the world’s biggest town,” said Peter Lieberwirth, who was the chairperson on the Technology and Communications Task Force. “It doesn’t have a great, big IT budget. It’s a really big deal that (the website) is easier to manage for town admin.”
That improved functionality will help justify the nearly $15,000 the website will cost Harpswell over the next three years, he said. So will soon-to-be-added tools like an improved communications module, which will allow users to sign up for town alerts specific to their location via text message.
But perhaps just as important is the new website’s ability to better approximate the sense of community that continues to draw residents to the Town Office every day to take care of tasks they could otherwise do online. Already, town staff’s call for photo submissions from residents has turned the website’s slideshow banner into a public scrapbook of scenic Harpswell views.
The goal of the update is not to replace the charm of Harpswell’s office but merely to bring a dose of it to the online world.
“There are people who for decades come into the Town Office, not because they have tons of business that can only be done in person, but they want to go in and say ‘hi’ and feel good about that personal connection,” Lieberwirth said. “We have to preserve that friendly, personal touch as more and more stuff moves towards the internet.”
Visit Harpswell’s new website at harpswell.maine.gov.
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