Improvements made for site to be mobile-friendly and easy to use

The City of Nanaimo’s new website is designed to be mobile friendly. File photo

The City of Nanaimo’s website has a new look.

The newly designed website, aimed at being more mobile friendly and easy to use, was launched last week after months of beta-testing by the public.

Changes have been in the works since 2014 for the nine-year-old site, a $96,000 project. Among improvements are plain language and larger text, and the site is easier to update.

“One of the missing items of the original website from 2009 was a lack of a governance body,” said Philip Cooper, city director of communications and engagement at a council meeting Monday. “We’ve now put in place a committee that has representation across the organization and they’ll be meeting on a regular basis to discuss what the current state of the website is and how to improve on it and how to move it forward as time marches forward.”

Search results have been slow on the site, as Google completes its indexing process, but the city expects it to get better through the week. People will be able to give feedback or notify the webmaster if anything is out-of-date on the site through a new link at the bottom of each page called ‘Is there anything wrong with this page?’

To see the site, visit www.nanaimo.ca.