___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(JACKSON, Miss.) — The City of Jackson has launched its new website located at jacksonms.gov that aims to continually improve access to public services and information for the people of Jackson.
The new, service-focused website is mobile-friendly, secured for user privacy protection, and makes accessibility a priority. The new website also better empowers those internally who manage digital services to the community.
“Our website will be the new digital government service center for all the people of Jackson,” said Communications Director, Candice Cole. “We’re taking this opportunity to use the power of modern technology to build these new digital services openly, iteratively and collaboratively. The people of Jackson can expect us to continuously improve our digital government services with the new approach we’ve taken.”
The website includes a new digital services center, extensive frequently asked questions, news, events, contact directory, social media integration, and online forms and payments.
All members of the Jackson community can give input to the website using the feedback link on all pages.
Phases
There were three phases to the official launch:
- Alpha: Experiment and test new ideas, call for community input. (August)
- Beta: Incorporate ideas, community input into a more concrete website. (September)
- Live: Formally launch the new site as the official public website. (October 21)
What’s been done to date:
- Ongoing training and empowerment of new web tools
- Developed content with a user-centered, customer service approach
- Incorporated new branding
- Predictive search
- Mobile responsive design
- Get answers app
- Updated government information
- Updated community information
- Improved public meetings
- Highlight transparency
- Website encryption
- ADA compliance
- Payments
- Issue reporting
- Notifications
- Focus group
- Alpha launch
- Beta launch
- Live launch
What’s next:
- Continuous improvement
- Iterating on feedback
- Adding and improving content
- Deeper engagement with Departments
- Add more online forms
- Expose additional key services
Jackson is collaborating with government technology software-as-a-service company ProudCity (https://proudcity.com) for its digital city platform. Jackson has contracted with ProudCity to manage all software, hosting and staff training and support needs at a cost of $1,735 per month. One-time onboarding costs, including training and project facilitation, was $34,370. This equates to a cost of $0.32 per resident the first year and $0.12 per resident per year thereafter.