City of Bloomington

Located about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis, Bloomington is the county seat of Monroe County and the seventh largest city in the state of Indiana. Bloomington is home to Indiana University, and its "college town" atmosphere helps to foster a diverse, highly educated population, an active cultural scene and progressive political environment. Bloomington is home to a generous amount of parks, recreational areas and beautiful green space and the Bloomington economy thrives on innovative research, science and technology. The City of Bloomington is the government entity for Bloomington, Indiana. Run by elected and appointed officials, the City of Bloomington is the administrative body that governs the city and provides city services to residents, businesses, organizations and tourists.

www.bloomington.in.gov 1  |  2  |  3

• Creation of header art (supplied in vector format)
• Modification of corporate logo
• Multiple visual designs
• Programming and coding of site-wide CSS for all public pages
• Programming and coding of site-wide CSS for site-wide print CSS
• Programming and coding of XHTML 1.1
• Project management and planning

Launch Date: April 15, 2008

Goals:

• Develop an attractive City of Bloomington website interface design that effectively organizes page information, engages each of the target audiences, and demonstrates the City's commitment to technology, transparency and growing the city of Bloomington.
• Focus on visual elements that make information easy to locate.
• Promote the City of Bloomington's advanced functionality tools and additional content being added to the site.
• Reflect the transparency of the administration; provide easy-to-find, comprehensive information to residents and visitors.
• Incorporate design elements that are compatible with accessibility guidelines meant to support those with disabilities (i.e. highly contrasting colors and text-based image alternatives for the visually impaired).
• Feature scalable design elements that can be enhanced and developed further by the City of Bloomington's internal IT department, making the work useful and successful on a long-term basis.

Strategy:

• Design with integration in mind. Create an exceptional site design that can be showcased online and simultaneously work in offline materials to promote and market the city.
• Develop site design that showcases Bloomington as tech-savvy with many "Web 2.0" design characteristics.
• Use bright, vibrant, high-contrasting colors - used sparingly, and clean and open layout with ample white space. Communicate that Bloomington is a place where you want to live, work, visit and play.
• Use icons to denote major sections: community, business, recreation, public safety, transportation, sustainability and government. Explore the use of icons should also be explored for other web tools: print page, email page, access RSS feeds, etc. Focus on usability to make users feel that this is their website and they are a part of the City government.
• Comply with accepted accessibility guidelines and design site to be compatible across multiple browser platforms.
• Create a page to showcase regional and national awards and accolades—communicate the City of Bloomington's recognized appeal.