Problem: Outdated & Non-Responsive Website
The Cook County Board of Review’s (BOR) previous website was a non-responsive, outdated design with non-intuitive navigation. The Board of Review team recognized that their audience was primarily looking for instructions on how to access and utilize a separate online appeal portal that actually tracked an individual’s appeal through the entire review process. The website’s information architecture didn’t facilitate an appeals process or help anyone quickly access the appeals portal. The Board of Review was also interested in improving their network stability and security by having their website hosted on the County’s previously established AWS infrastructure.
Solution: Replatform & Redesign
The BOR initially engaged Clarity Partners in 2015 to redesign and implement a new content management system (CMS), but due to the heavy workload during their review period, the project was paused and restarted in 2017. With the project restart, Clarity reviewed requirements, updated the original designs and built upon an information architecture to include new content needs. Clarity implemented a basic version of Drupal which had pre-configured settings to meet Cook County government website guidelines, called the Clarity Gov. Core. This resulted in a smooth and streamlined implementation for BOR.
Impact: Stable, Secure and Intuitive Website
The new BOR website:
- Provides a streamlined navigation and site search for users to locate pertinent information quickly.
- Highlights the appeals portal prominently on the homepage to help direct users to their specific account.
- Empowers the BOR content owners to regularly update and edit their own content within the CMS.
- Ensures site stability and security with leading provider of cloud-hosting solutions, AWS.
These results, in turn, have reduced the volume of inbound inquiries and are expected to free up the BOR staff to process more appeals within the annual review period going forward.
