Salinas, CA -- The City of Salinas has launched a new version of its official website at a new url: cityofsalinas.org. Visitors to the old url, www.ci.salinas.ca.us, will be automatically directed to the new one.


CityOfSalinas.org has a new design, new capabilities, and new underlying technology. Among its features:

A new visual design, which expresses Salinas' youth, energy, and diversity on the home page and throughout the site.

A simplified navigation structure, which makes it easier for users to find what they need among the thousands of possibilities within a modern city website. Visitors can navigate several different ways, each designed to support finding most content within one or two clicks. One way is via the "megamenu" that appears when a user hovers over a main menu link:




For example, as seen above, a visitor looking for City Hall could hover over the "How Do I..." menu at the upper left. That would cause a megamenu to appear. Under "Find" the user would click on "City Hall."

As an alternative, a user might just type "find City Hall" into the "How Do I" search box at the bottom of the screen.

Or the entire site can be searched for all references to City Hall, by using the Search box at upper right.

Multimedia content. The new site makes more use of photos, maps, and videos, and includes a video gallery, featured on the home page.

Easy content creation by City staff. The new site makes it much easier to add and edit content without the need for web development skills. Staff from across City departments will be able to add news, events, photos, and videos, and control where, when, and how they appear.



Bilingual content. As with the previous site, all content on the new site will continuously be translated into Spanish, through translation firm MotionPoint. The translation system will need time to synch up with the new site design, and during that process most Spanish content will continue to be available via the site's "Espaņol" link.

Mobile-friendliness. The new site uses "responsive" design, which means that instead of just shrinking to fit a smart phone or tablet screen, it adapts its layout to make the best use of the smaller display:




Support for web-based City services. The City is making more and more of its services available via the web, including receiving forms, processing payments, providing maps, conducting surveys, or delivering agendas and other documents. The new site supports currently available web services, and will integrate with more as they come online.

More information on the new CityOfSalinas.org is available from:

Patricia Barajas, City Clerk and leader of the City's internal web team
patricib@ci.salinas.ca.us
(831) 758-7383

Spencer Critchley, Managing Partner of the City's consulting communications firm Boots Road Group, which developed the site.
spencer@bootsroad.com
(831) 612-9200 ext 3

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