Granite Town Media debuts new town website with mobile-first design, expanded forms and analytics

Chris Gentry, director of Granite Town Media, told the advisory committee on Jan. 23 that the town’s redesigned website is live and already showing different usage patterns that favor mobile devices.

The site, built with vendor Nunavut, was switched over on Jan. 2 after the state completed a DNS change required for .nh.gov domains, Gentry said. He told the committee the migration trimmed the public document set from an estimated 40,000–50,000 items down to roughly 15,000 to 25,000 documents to remove duplicates and unnecessary files.

Gentry said the site includes a resources library and new workflow for attaching agenda packages, which keeps meeting attachments in a single folder and populates the calendar automatically. He told members that fillable PDFs for community development and zoning filings are under development and will save copies to the site’s back end so staff receive form submissions by email and retain a backup in the cloud.

The site’s employment module is in testing. Gentry said the new “apply now” form could, if it meets Human Resources needs, reduce or replace the third-party ApplicantPro subscription; he characterized that as a potential cost-saving option but said no final decision has been made.

Gentry also described a volunteer-opportunities page that lists committees and openings, and a planned community calendar aimed at nonprofits and residents. He said he is working with Milford Thrives representatives to populate that calendar and that the group has offered to pursue grants and help compile entries.

On alerts, the director said Nixle (recently transitioned toward Everbridge) will be embedded as an iframe widget so alerts display and update automatically; the committee discussed embedding the widget in the site’s alerts banner.

Gentry showed Google Analytics for the new site and said most visitors now access the site on mobile devices, chiefly iOS and Chrome browsers. He said that data will guide further user-interface tweaks and that staff-only edit instructions and short video guides are available while departments ramp up updating their sections.

Natalie Watson, committee chair, and others discussed headshots and how board and committee pages present member listings; Gentry said staff will help departments add photos and that list or tile formats are available but public-format choices are controlled by site administrators.

Gentry asked for a short-term handoff of some maintenance tasks to Andy (staff) to reduce the hours he spends daily on site work while departments are trained. He said the change would be temporary and limited to a few hours a week.

The committee agreed to continue testing and training; Gentry said he will return with updates at future meetings.