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Designing Primary Navigation For a City Website

Municipalities have a common mission but there is little standard about how they divide up duties that support the citizens. The customer base of there website is often a navigation nightmare due to the widely different classes of customers that they serve. A quick look at the customer base can show how different they are. I have divided the classes of customer as I have seen them to better understand the design problem.

  1. Tourist – people that want to come to the city for several different reasons. Tourist since they are causal visitor with several options they need to be sold or persuaded to want to come.
  2. Citizens – people that live in or close to the City of Richmond which are also divided into subclass of
    1. Newcomers – people that are new to a city have one time needs that they often look to the city’s website to find the answers to.
    2. Residents – people that return to a city's website for information that relates to how they interact with the city. Their interaction are diverse range of questions that they will need answers to.
    3. Senior Residents -- that have special accessibility concerns.
    4. Youths -- that use a subset of city service but may or may not have the navigation skills that that a Resident would.
  3. Business –
    1. People wanting to do business with the City of Richmond.
    2. People wanting to start a business within the Municipality.
    3. People currently doing business in the City of Richmond.
    4. The City of Richmond desire to attract new business.
  4. people wanting eduction

      5. There is developing a common vocabulary with Municipalities when they deal with primary navigation. As I look at a cities website to see how they looked at the problem I have been noting the vocabulary that they are using. I have looked at 22 site for this survey.

      This is the page for Parks and Rec Divisions

      "311" has occurred 1 time
      "A-Z Index (site map)" has occurred 3 time
      "About X" X = city name has occurred 5 time
      "Animals" has occurred 1 time
      "Assembly & General Code" has occurred 1 time
      "Boards and Commissions" has occurred 1 time
      "Boards of Supervisors" has occurred 1 time
      "Budget and Finance" has occurred 1 time
      "Business" has occurred 23 time
      "Business/ Industry" has occurred 1 time
      "Business Services" has occurred 1 time
      "Calendar " has occurred 1 time
      "Careers" has occurred 2 time
      "City Council" has occurred 5 time
      "City Departments" has occurred 2 time
      "City Calendar" has occurred 1 time
      "City Contacts" has occurred 1 time
      "City Directory" has occurred 2 time
      "City Government" has occurred 2 time
      "City Hall" has occurred 6 time
      "City Organizations " has occurred 1 time
      "City Officials " has occurred 2 time
      "City News" has occurred 1 time
      "City Page" has occurred 1 time
      "City Projects" has occurred 1 time
      "City Staff Directory" has occurred 1 time
      "City Services" has occurred 4 time
      "Citizen Services" has occurred 1 time
      "Commission Agendas " has occurred 1 time
      "Community " has occurred 2 time
      "Contact Us" has occurred 7 time
      "Courts" has occurred 2 time
      "Department" has occurred 4 time
      "Development" has occurred 1 time
      "Directory" has occurred 2 time
      "Discover 'X' " has occurred 1 time
      "Do Business" has occurred 1 time
      "Doing Business" has occurred 1 time
      "Education" has occurred 2 time
      "Election Information" has occurred 1 time
      "Emergency Info" has occurred 1 time
      "en Espanol" has occurred 2 time
      "e-Government" has occurred 1 time
      "e-Services" has occurred 3 time
      "Employment" has occurred 7 time
      "Environment" has occurred 1 time
      "Events" has occurred 2 time
      "FAQ" has occurred 3 time
      "Featured Sites" has occurred 1 time
      "Fire" has occurred 1 time
      "For Residents" has occurred 2 time
      "Government" has occurred 12 time
      "Health" has occurred 1 time
      "Health Services" has occurred 1 time
      "Help" has occurred 3 time
      "Help Center" has occurred 2 time
      "Home" has occurred 5 time
      "How do I?... " has occurred 2 time
      "Human Resources" has occurred 1 time
      "I want to" has occurred 2 time
      "Jobs" has occurred 6 time
      "Kids and Teens" has occurred 1 time
      "Learning" has occurred 1 time
      "Leisure" has occurred 1 time
      "Library" has occurred 1 time
      "Living and working" has occurred 2 time
      "Links" has occurred 2 time
      "Living" has occurred 1 time
      "Living in X" X = city name has occurred 1 time
      "Mayor/Council" has occurred 3 time
      "Mayor's Office" has occurred 4 time
      "Mayor's Newsroom" has occurred 1 time
      "Metro council" has occurred 1 time
      "Media" has occurred 1 time
      "Most Requested" has occurred 1 time
      "My Account " has occurred 1 time
      "MyX" X = city name has occurred 1 time
      "Municipal Clerk" has occurred 1 time
      "Neighborhoods" has occurred 2 time
      "Neighborhood Resources" has occurred 1 time
      "News" has occurred 4 time
      "News/Events " has occurred 1 time
      "News and TV" has occurred 2 time
      "'X" Now" has occurred 1 time
      "Online Services" has occurred 7 time
      "Planning" has occurred 1 time
      "Park" has occurred 1 time
      "Park and Fine Arts" has occurred 1 time
      "Phone Directory" has occurred 1 time
      "Play" has occurred 1 time
      "Police" has occurred 1 time
      "Problem" has occurred 1 time
      "Press" has occurred 1 time
      "Public Safety" has occurred 3 times
      "Public Officials" has occurred 1 time
      "Recreation and Tourism" has occurred 1 time
      "Records" has occurred 1 time
      "Recycle" has occurred 1 time
      "Residents" has occurred 17 time
      "Residency/Community" has occurred 1 time
      "Request a City Service" has occurred 1 time
      "Safety" has occurred 1 time
      "Search" has occurred 9 time
      "Services " has occurred 2 time
      "Services Online" has occurred 1 time
      "Services and Payments" has occurred 1 time
      "Site Map" has occurred 3 time
      "Special Projects" has occured 1 time
      "Staff" has occurred 1 time
      "Thins To Do" has occurred 1 time
      "Transportation" has occurred 2 time
      "Text only" has occurred 2 time
      "Tourism" has occurred 2 time
      "Utilities" has occurred 1 time
      "Visitors" has occurred 18 time
      "Visiting" has occurred 2 time
      "Water" has occurred 1 time
      "Wellness" has occurred 1 time
      "Your Government" has occurred 1 time

      With Menu Navigation the number of items in a menu and the number of tiers I also believe are important

      Number of items in a single menu tier
      4 items has occured 2 time
      5 items has occured 1 time
      6 items has occured 8 time
      7 items has occured 7 time
      8 items has occured 3 time
      9 items has occured 3 time
      10 items has occured 3 time
      11 items has occured 3 time
      12 items has occured 2 time
      13 items has occured 1 time
      14 items has occured 1 time
      15 items has occured 1 time

      Number of tiers in Primary Navigation
      19 with 1 tier of menus
      10 with 2 tiers of menus
      6 with 3 tiers of menus
      1 with 4 tiers of menus

      Items in a second level tier
      2 items has occurred 3 time
      3 items has occurred 5 time
      4 items has occurred 9 time
      5 items has occurred 6 time
      6 items has occurred 7 time
      7 items has occurred 11 time
      8 items has occurred 11 time
      9 items has occurred 9 time
      10 items has occurred 7 time
      11 items has occurred 6 time
      12 items has occurred 5 time
      13 items has occurred 2 time
      14 items has occurred 3 time
      15 items has occurred 8 time
      16 items has occurred 1 time
      21 items has occurred 3 time
      22 items has occurred 2 time

      Site referenced in my survey
      1. Aurora, Colorado Nov 13 2008
      2. City of Virginia Beach Nov 13 2008
      3. Tampa, Florida Nov 13 2008
      4. Tucson, Az Nov 13 2008
      5. Alexandria, Va Nov 13 2008
      6. Chesapeake, Va Nov 13 2008
      7. Washington, DC Nov 13 2008
      8. Hampton, Virginia Nov 13 2008
      9. Hollywood, Floridia Nov 13 2008
      10. Honolulu, Hawaii Nov 13 2008
      11. Irving, Texas Nov 13 2008
      12. Kansas City, Missouri Nov 13 2008
      13. Lakewood, Colorado Nov 13 2008
      14. Sitka, Alaska Nov 13 2008
      15. Lincoln, Nebraska Nov 13 2008
      16. Fort Collins, Colorado Nov 13 2008
      17. Madison, Wisconsin Nov 13 2008
      18. Meza, Az Nov 13 2008
      19. Miami, Florida Nov 13 2008
      20. Norfolk, Virginia Nov 13 2008
      21. Ontario, California Nov 13 2008
      22. Nashville, Tennessee Nov 13 2008
      23. Durham, NC July 8, 2009
      24 New York http://www.nyc.gov/
      25 Philadelphia PA http://www.phila.gov/
      26 San Fran CA http://www.sfgov.org/
      27 Nashville http://www.nashville.gov/
      28 Oklahoma City http://www.okc.gov/
      29 Fresno http://www.fresno.gov/default.htm
      30 Long Beach http://www.longbeach.gov/default.asp
      31 Cleveland http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/CityofCleveland/Home
      32 Arlington http://www.arlingtontx.gov/
      33 Cincinnati http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/index.html?CFID=2444720&CFTOKEN=94192980
      34 Lexington http://www.lexingtonky.gov/
      35 Newark http://www.ci.newark.nj.us/