Glynn County previews redesigned website after year of staff research and testing

Kim Ransom, Glynn County's web and digital content administrator, presented a sneak peek of a redesigned county website at the July 15 work session, describing the effort as the product of roughly 12 months of research, design, development and testing. "I am the web and digital content administrator, and I am here to show you long anticipated sneak peek preview of our new website," Ransom said. Ransom said the redesign was informed by interviews with executive leadership and a community survey with more than 380 responses that identified priorities such as easier navigation for county services, permit applications, payments, events and elections. She said research showed roughly 76 percent of users access the site from mobile devices and that the new site was designed to be mobile friendly. Key changes shown included a prominent "I want to" quick‑action section for common tasks, an enhanced search that matches keywords in documents and tags, improved breadcrumb navigation, department microthemes that allow public safety and other departments a distinct look while staying within county branding, and an improved footer with quick access to contact, customer service and permits pages. Ransom said the county will implement a document repository to make minutes and agendas more searchable and that Glynn County IT planned to enable keyword searching of minutes prior to the launch. She acknowledged vendor staffing turnover late in the project and said both the vendor and county had added staff to keep the project on track. Commissioners asked whether nontechnical residents would be included in user acceptance testing; Ransom said internal UAT was underway and the county had discussed sending the site to nontechnical testers after the first internal pass. Tanya (chief of staff) and other officials thanked staff for internal contributions across departments. During closing remarks Ransom said the early community feedback program, "Voice of the Citizen," which gathered the 380 responses, would continue to collect input through March of the following year. Why it matters: the county says the redesign targets high‑volume tasks and mobile users, which staff say will make it easier for residents to find services such as trash pickup, permit information and customer service contacts.