SWEETWATER COUNTY – Sweetwater County has started the process to redesign the county’s website to be mobile-friendly and accessible.

The Sweetwater County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday morning to approve a website committee to handle the details of the redesign.

Information Technology Director Tim Knight said the county did a redesign about six years ago.

“It’s a nice website and it works, but about 30% of the people who hit our website now are hitting it through a mobile device, like a cell phone,” said Knight.  “If you’ve looked at our website on a cell phone, it’s not very pleasing. It’s not easy to maneuver.”
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In addition, in January, organizations receiving federal funding will have to meet new standards to improve accessibility.

For example, the new standards include not using colors that are common in color blindness and using buttons of a certain size for those with vision impairment. Knight said it’s a good idea to accommodate for those things anyway.

Knight said he has approached three vendors for a proposal to update and host a “responsive” design that will be more mobile-friendly.

“At least one of the vendors can do it within our existing budget,” said Knight. “The estimated time would be 4-5 months.”

A breakdown of visits by browser for June 2017 confirms the high use of mobile browsers accessing the county’s site.
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