Keep Austin Well-Designed

From now until August 31, the city of Austin is asking Austinites to add a little shazam to the city's website by voting on a new design.

The redesign of the city website is part of the AustinGO project, which is working toward a new era in open government. AustinGo hopes that by bringing a more attractive user-friendly site to the city, it will be easier for citizens to find out what's going on in town.

Austin has always been a leader in technology, putting up its first web page in 1995. Since then, the City of Austin website has grown from 300 to over 40,000 pages. Take a look at the city home page and it is clear that we've outgrown this tired web design with bland columns that seem to stretch down the page for miles.

There are currently three home page designs online (see options one, two and three at the city website). They will also be available at every Austin Council City meeting this month. These designs are the result of several months of surveys, focus group discussions and interviews with current users. Austinites can look through each one, post comments, and vote on which design is their favorite. Tweet comments using the #austingo hashtag, post on the City's Facebook page or share your comments with the AustinGo website.

The selected design will be used as the framework from which to build the rest of the city website. The construction of a new website is scheduled to begin early 2011.

Personally, I'm leaning toward design No. 1 with more color and a kooky font. What's your favorite? Go online now to see all three designs and vote at www/speakupaustin.org/austingo.