The official borough website has been overhauled, and Mayor William Budesheim said he is quite pleased with the new layout.
"I think it's a lot easier on the eyes," he said. "I think it's a lot easier to navigate and to find things."
This is a screenshot of Riverdale's old website.… And here's what the borough's new website looks like.
In 2013, the Monmouth University Polling Institute and Graduate Program in Public Policy reviewed 540 municipal websites in New Jersey. Riverdale's old site was ranked at 416th, the lowest among Suburban Trends-area towns. Borough officials are pleased with the new borough website's aesthetics and user-friendliness.
Councilman Stephen Revis said, "It seems like an attractive website that people should find very easy to maneuver through, and it contains a lot of useful information."
Budesheim said, "It is a lot easer to organize. We have tabs on the top and tabs on the side, and it has that 'Find it Fast' feature. When you click that, there are certain things you can go to that people are more likely to be looking for."
Budesheim had maintained the old borough website, and received a "Webmaster of the Year" award from E-Government.com in 2007.
But last May, the Borough Council hired the firm of Virtual Towns & Schools to provide website hosting and support services. The move not only improved the website, but saved money. The new contract will cost $1,995 for year-round services. The borough's old website cost $3,900 annually to maintain.
Borough officials decided to upgrade the old website after the New Jersey State Police notified them that it had security flaws.
The mayor said the old website's security was a concern, and it was also getting difficult to manage.
He said, "The other one, their system had not been updated and it was getting hard to get documents on there. It was hard to upload them, and it was becoming an uneasy thing to use."
Council President Paul Carelli said he learned the new website had gone live only after it was mentioned at last Wednesday's school board meeting.
"Although I did not have a chance to look at the new design in detail, it appears to be a big improvement over what we had, and I am confident that we can make adjustments to make it even better," said Carelli.
He added, "It would have been nice if the council members were given the opportunity to review and comment before it went live."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Leslie Scott
Quelle/Source: NorthJersey, 25.10.2015
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