The city of South Bend launched a new version of it’s website Monday. The design is meant to make the most used features easy to find.
The site was designed with a lot of input from different sources. Resident surveys, the South Bend Code School and the University of Notre Dame all played a role.
The city’s chief innovation officer Santiago Garces said for the next year or so they will be taking resident opinions and issues into account to improve the site.
“Our goal is to continually make the website better and better and to make the content relevant. So hopefully you will always be seeing new things. But the idea is that we have to do less of a big push to make things better.”
The website will eventually be able to translate into more than 100 languages and has accessibility features like changing text size and a PDF version. It’s also designed to be mobile friendly, and has an integrated search feature that references all the city’s sites in one place.
The city also launched a 311 portal full of the informational articles that 311 operators reference so residents can help themselves if they don’t want to call.