The City of Coralville recently selected Darning Pixels, Inc. from 3 area vendors, as the web design firm to develop their new web site. Their selection process was based on industry knowledge, previous experience and pricing.

During our requirements gathering phase of the project, we determined the following main areas of the web site needed to be developed: an end user view for the citizens of the City of Coralville and surrounding areas, an administration tool for the control of general content on the site and a department administration tool for control of content within a specific department. One of the main goals of the web application was to provide to the client full control over all content on the site. Additionally, the city administrators wanted each department to be responsible for the content relevant to their own department (spreading out the workload).

Our solution was to develop a tool that allows the general administrator the ability to create departments as needed. The general admin creates a department simply by naming the department and designating a username and password. The web application system then automatically does the following: 1) creates a link in the left navigation under Departments, utilizing the department name entered by the general admin 2) sets up a mini website in which the department admin will log in and populate the content. The mini website consist of the following pages: department homepage, general information, calendar of events, staff information, contact us and miscellaneous pages. The department admin can create as many miscellaneous pages as necessary, the name they specify for the title of the page is utilized as navigation to the end user.

We implemented a robust, content management tool for use by both the general admin and department admins. The tool allows the admins to upload photos, format text, add links and a host of other tools that allows them to control every aspect of the site, fulfilling on of the main goals identified at the start of the project.

The new website was launched within the timeframe specified at the onset of the project. The general response from the citizens of the City of Coralville has been overwhelmingly positive