The Woodlands Township announced a redesigned public website at the board meeting on May 28 and said the site will be officially promoted the following Friday after a soft launch on May 14.

Why it matters: About 70% of township users access services on mobile devices, township communications staff said, so redesigning the site for mobile search, improved calendar and an address-based lookup aims to make services and contact information easier to find for residents.

What staff reported: Leanne Peterson, Director of Communications, told the board the project involved more than 10,000 pieces of content and about an 18-month effort with staff and an outside vendor. "On May 14 we had a soft launch of the new website and on Friday we're going to make our official announcement that we're live," Peterson said.

Key features: Peterson demonstrated a new address-lookup tool that shows the village, county, law enforcement provider, energy provider, and trash/recycling pickup day for a specific address. She said the search function was redesigned to prioritize common resident queries and to surface calendar events and department pages more effectively. Peterson also said three microsites for Parks and Recreation, Transportation and Fire will be released next.

User testing and indexing: Staff described an informational-architecture testing phase with staff, village users and residents; the township used redirects and submitted sitemaps to search engines. Peterson cautioned that search engines will re-index large sites over days to weeks and urged residents to report broken Google links so staff can create redirects.

Board action: The board received and accepted the communications report. Director Nelson moved to accept the report; Director Eisler seconded and the motion carried.

Ending: Communications staff asked residents and village leaders to test the site and report missing or broken links; the township will continue iterative improvements and make additional microsites available this summer.