Background
Britt Priddy is the webmaster responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operation of the website of the City of Odessa. A city of over 100,000 people in Western Texas, Odessa’s website is a primary outlet for its citizens’ information needs, civic participation and ever-evolving service requirements.
Before deciding to employ Siteimprove’s services, Britt's only way of finding broken links, misspellings, and accessibility issues was to manually go through the website. This involved the lengthy process of running all website pages through the W3C validator, using plug-ins, and an array of unreliable 3rd party tools and applications.
Although Britt worked hard to keep on top of the daily maintenance of the website, he lacked a comprehensive overview of all errors present on the website. Britt sensed that routine website maintenance was taking too much time away from more important mid- and long-term projects. It was all too clear: there was unlocked potential in the site, but he lacked the precious resource of time.
When Siteimprove offered to provide feedback about his website’s broken links, misspellings and accessibility compliance issues, Britt was initially reluctant due to his busy schedule. However, he decided to take advantage of Siteimprove’s no-obligation trial, as we promised to include the entire website. This would provide the much-needed overview of how the website was fairing in these areas. Since SiteCheck is an online service, Britt was able to start reviewing the service immediately, with no set-up time or installations required.
The Experience
The first scan by SiteCheck reported dozens of errors, one of them being the spelling of “human resources” on Odessa’s ‘job listings’ page. To Britt’s surprise he realized that such an obvious error had gone unrecognized since the launch of the site. Taken aback, Britt said “I can’t believe no one ever caught that." Humbled by this and other eye-opening discoveries, Britt soon recognized the time and money-saving potential of SiteCheck, and subscribed to the service after only a short trial period.
Britt was most impressed by the ease and speed with which he was able to identify issues using SiteCheck, since it clearly highlighted the precise location of errors on individual pages. He particularly liked that errors were consolidated into efficient time-saving lists. Britt could choose to view pages with the most errors, or prioritize his time by choosing to address errors affecting the greatest number of pages, following the "Frequent Errors" list. Other useful features noted by Britt were the email address and social security number detector, as well as the inventories of all pages, documents, images, and media files on the website.
Britt witnessed the numbers of errors decrease on the report daily as he set about making corrections. Britt then realized the power in having a consolidated report that could also be split up into page groups. This feature has helped Britt establish production goals for himself. For example, one day he will fix the Fire Department's pages, the next day he will fix the Parks and Recreation area of the website, tackling those with the most errors first. Having all data conveniently located on one easy-to-access online platform greatly simplifies Britt's job, making it both thorough and less time-consuming. The regularly scheduled checks of the website also mean that Britt will be alerted to issues when they arise, and often before the public becomes aware of them.
Conclusion
Britt and the city of Odessa’s website have both benefited tremendously from SiteCheck. The service includes core modules for generating reports on broken links, misspelled words, and accessibility issues - all organized clearly and conveniently located on an easy-to-access online platform. Now that Britt is no longer dependent on time-consuming methods - or the public - to rectify errors spread across the website, he can operate proactively, managing his time more effectively, and focusing his energy on future developments.
Epilogue
When Siteimprove’s client relations staff followed up with Britt after a couple of months, he said, “SiteCheck is the best tool I have found to help me effectively address website maintenance issues, freeing up time for my other responsibilities and our continued efforts to develop in step with constantly changing technologies and citizen requirements." He added, "SiteCheck has provided us with a centralized point for the organization and status of our website.” For this reason, SiteCheck particularly benefits websites that have a medium to high volume of pages and content, allowing for an "at a glance" picture of where the website issues really lie.
Britt exclaimed, “I am taking full advantage of the grouping facility, which not only allows me to group pages by department, but also have individualized group reports sent out to each department head. This ensures they stay informed as to the current status of their sections of the website."
When asked why Britt would recommend Siteimprove’s services to other Webmasters he said: “It would make their job a lot more organized and give them time to focus on other important design and development tasks, instead of continually having to dedicate time to deal with sporadic complaints by users. As we all know, being government entities, our websites are never finished – they are living documents which continue to grow and expand."
Britt Priddy, Webmaster
City of Odessa, Texas
http://www.odessa-tx.gov