This goal of being the best really resonated strongly with our strategy team. There are 50 states and at least three commonwealths (by our count) in the United States. That gave us 53 housing departments with websites we could analyze and take the ‘best ofs’ from to construct the DHCD’s website.
Unfortunately, we could not find a single thing we liked from any of these websites, so we went back to the drawing board. DHCD’s biggest challenge was that they’re staff would get inundated with calls from people who were unable to find information on their website. From there we discovered there were really two kinds of people who visited: those who knew what they wanted and just needed a phone number or form – and those who were completely lost.
With this in mind, we created the idea of a program finder and a “point of contact finder”. This would help solve the needs of those who had a general idea of what they wanted and those who knew exactly what they wanted.
For the last group – those completely lost, we took the approach of revising their menu structure to go by audience type instead of by program type. Now home buyers have their own home page, as do builders, and government reps.
Being the best 501c3 compliant website was the challenge we presented to our design team. We hope the results speak from themselves. Even with the many restrictions of the Maryland Government style guide, our client was thrilled with the results.
Development of the site is proceeding in Microsoft Sharepoint CMS. We have migrated over several tools and calculators into sharepoint widgets. We are also working with the MD government at large to ensure this site can integrate within their larger sharepoint initiatives.
Development has been put to stand still as of December 2011 due to staff transition at the government, but we are hopeful to see our design come to life and intend to enter in several government webbie awards soon after!
