City of Orlando Launches Beta Website
Last updated on August 13, 2018
City of Orlando Launches Beta Website, Bringing More Than 60 City Services Online and Making City Government More Efficient and User-Friendly
Orlando, Fla. – August 10, 2018 – The City of Orlando’s Digital Services Team has officially launched the city’s new Beta website at beta.orlando.gov, transforming residents’ online experience with the City of Orlando into a simple, beautiful and easy to use experience. The site reduces residents’ needs to visit City Hall or to call city staff to conduct business with the city bringing more than 60 city services online. Three of the most asked for new services the city has brought online, include:
- Reporting identify theft
- Applying for home sharing registration
- Reporting a traffic safety issue, including potholes or traffic light outages
The city’s Alpha website launched in the summer of 2017, and was a jumping off point for tackling 13 initial city services, testing the workflow for online submissions in place of paper forms and working with department leaders on input and key priorities. Throughout this process, the city’s digital team removed bugs, surveyed residents for feedback and spoke with the community in an effort to improve services and the process as they worked up to its current online services.
The Beta site was highlighted by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer in his State of the City speech on Tuesday, as he noted, “We have set a goal of becoming the first municipality to fundamentally transform the way cities do business and interact with residents on daily basis,” said Mayor Dyer. “We sought to reinvent Orlando’s web and mobile sites, turning them into service-based platforms, allowing our residents to conduct business with us on their time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we are well on our way to making that a reality.”
The new website has been in development since mid-2017 with the goal of creating a shift in how residents interact with the city’s services, reducing the amount of time and clicks it takes to get to frequently used pages, while prioritizing the public’s needs.
“Our Beta launch also coincides with the 2018 National Day of Civic Hacking on August 11, 2018, which is a chance to collaborate and problem solve with civic-minded colleagues to demonstrate government can work better with technology,” said Matt Broffman, director of innovation for the City of Orlando. “We viewed this as perfect timing to officially roll out our Beta site, as the organization’s goal directly corresponds with the city’s initiative of learning from other municipalities as well as to create a better product and solve problems, while placing residents’ needs as the priority.”
Part of the Beta launch is to continue collecting feedback from residents, and the city invites users to submit feedback here. Following the Beta testing period and more input from the community, the city plans to launch the final orlando.gov website in early 2019.
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