Orange County Florida Government Website Redesign
I led the top-to-bottom redesign and content refresh of the official government website for Orange County, Florida. This project, which served one of the largest counties in the state—home to the city of Orlando—represented a comprehensive overhaul aimed at improving user experience, modernizing the design, and creating content that adhered to plain language and web best practices. The success of this initiative was recognized when the site was awarded 1st place as the Best County Website in the United States by the Center for Digital Government.
Scope and Challenges
The redesign was a large-scale effort encompassing every aspect of the website, from design and user experience to content strategy and implementation. A critical challenge involved addressing the sprawling and inconsistent content across various departments. My role required reducing the overall volume of content by at least one-third while maintaining its relevance and clarity. This meant rewriting, restructuring, and editing the existing content to ensure uniform quality and alignment with web standards.
One of the most significant hurdles was working collaboratively with department heads and their staff, many of whom were resistant to streamlining their content. Their initial reluctance stemmed from concerns about losing critical information or misrepresenting the scope of their work. To address these concerns, I adopted a non-threatening, collaborative approach, demonstrating how concise, well-structured content could better highlight their accomplishments and services rather than bury them in excessive verbiage.
Key Contributions
Content Strategy and Development: Much of my work involved hands-on rewriting of content to align with plain language guidelines and standardizing style across departments to create a cohesive voice.
Workshops and Stakeholder Engagement: I conducted weekly content-focused workshops for senior managers across the county’s departments. These sessions educated stakeholders on the importance of plain language and web best practices while fostering buy-in for the content overhaul.
Collaborative Content Creation: To further build trust and demonstrate the potential of concise web content, I provided rewritten before and after examples of department pages. These examples showcased how streamlined content could better highlight their contribution to the county.
Leadership and Team Management: I supervised a team of interns who assisted with editing, writing, and development. Together, we tackled the extensive workload, ensuring the project stayed on track and met the high standards set for the redesign.
Outcome
The redesigned Orange County website successfully balanced user-centric design with streamlined content, resulting in a platform that was both functional and engaging. This project highlights my ability to manage complex, high-profile web design and content initiatives, navigate challenging stakeholder dynamics, and deliver award-winning results.
