Hamilton, ON – The City of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has released a beta version of its new website and is encouraging residents to provide their feedback on it.

The new site has been constructed over the past few months using Drupal 9 technology at a cost of $213,900. The beta site will be made available via the homepage on the City’s current website over the next several months. The beta site demonstrates the website’s new look and feel as well as several of its new features, including a vastly improved search capability, which was the single largest piece of feedback the City received from the consultation phase of the project.

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Our website is our virtual front door and often the first experience a community member has with the City of Hamilton. That’s why it is important that our website offers an experience that is convenient and easy to use. Our new hamilton.ca website will offer people a better online experience and helps us achieve our goals of openness and transparency by ensuring information is available and accessible,” said Mayor Fred Eisenberger

City Communications staff will continue to migrate existing website content to the new site over the remainder of the summer with an aim to having the site fully launched in September 2022. Once launched, the City’s current website will be retired at which point the beta site will assume the web URL of hamilton.ca.

As of launch, the beta site will include approximately 50 per cent of the City information and will include content that was identified as the highest area of web traffic over the past three years as well as content that represented a revenue generating service for the City, including transit, parking and water.

Content that requires frequent updates, such as new public health clinics, weekly reporting statistics or programs that are paused until the fall will be migrated to the beta site in September just prior to launch, to help avoid significant duplication of efforts as content on both sites will need to be maintained until launch.

Over the coming months, the City will be examining further improvements of the new site, including more seamless integration with the eScribe platform, which facilitates Council business as well as a continued focus on the site’s accessibility features.

“We want to thank the residents of Hamilton for all of their feedback during the project’s consultation phase, which guided how the site was developed and what elements of the build were prioritized. In line with the feedback we received, we have made searchability the number one priority on the new website with the aim of helping citizens find what they are looking for quickly and easily,” said Matthew Grant, Director, Communications & Strategic Initiatives

City residents visiting the beta site will be provided with an opportunity to give the City feedback on the new site via an online survey, which will inform the City’s continuous improvement efforts on the site that will continue in perpetuity after launch. In addition, City staff will be seeking feedback on the site and its accessibility from several City advisory committees. Residents providing feedback are encouraged to review the beta site’s desktop and mobile applications.

The beta version of the new website can be viewed at beta.hamilton.ca.