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Why ‘buying local’ isn’t always the best option for local government websites

Posted on February 19, 2020

City leaders sometimes tell us they use a local website vendor for their city websites. While this is commendable -- as any ‘buy local’ effort is -- it is often a short-sighted approach to delivering high-quality, sustainable, and scalable digital government services. ‘Local’ doesn’t equal ‘digital government expertise’ Local website firms generally focus on non-government...

Government product management

Posted on September 6, 2019

While the work of government is commonly referred to as service — embodied in the terms ‘public service’ and ‘public servant’ — it’s the government-as-a-product mindset that is driving the future of truly innovative and effective civic organizations. The shift in perspective to government-as-a-product doesn’t de-emphasize the mission-critical purpose and intent of government. Instead, product...

The empowered government product owner

Posted on August 27, 2019

The government product owner is responsible for setting the vision, ensuring effective delivery and being accountable for a specific product, such as a website, policy or public service program. It is a role that is becoming more critical, particularly for successful digital government project launches and continued management. Government digital service organizations who incorporate product...

Team pledges for effective digital government delivery

Posted on August 26, 2019

Team pledges are a fun way to “swear in” the team and bring everyone together in a semi-formal way to vocally unify commitment to the team agreement. ProudCity uses a team pledge at the beginning of every new project. Example pledge As a member of [TEAM NAME], I solemnly swear to uphold the [TEAM NAME]...

Team agreements for effective digital government delivery

Posted on August 22, 2019

Team agreements help set a foundation of trust and effectiveness for how project members work together to achieve a common goal. Team agreements are common in agile work environments where communicated expectations help ensure projects stay focused on delivering digital services on time and on budget. As the U.S. General Services Administration says of team...

Government website launch phases

Posted on July 26, 2019

ProudCity Onboarding provides governments with a, structured process in getting websites launched onto the ProudCity digital government platform. We follow a three-phase approach -- alpha, beta, live -- to ensure this process is as efficient as possible. In general, digital projects have four phases they go through when launching. These include: Discovery Alpha Beta Live...

How to customize colors on your ProudCity-powered government website

Posted on April 29, 2019

Customizing colors on your ProudCity-powered government website is easy. Here’s how. Step 1 Select ‘Customize’ in the left navigation of the ProudCity Dashboard. Step 2 Select the ‘Colors’ option in the customization tool. Step 3 NOTE: When selecting colors, be sure to account for web accessibility (see Color, web accessibility and government websites). Select color...

How to customize fonts on your ProudCity-powered government website

Posted on April 26, 2019

Customizing fonts on your ProudCity-powered government website is easy. Here’s how. Step 1 Select ‘Customize’ in the left navigation of the ProudCity Dashboard. Step 2 Select the ‘Fonts’ option in the customization tool. Step 3 Select your default and heading fonts and click the ‘Publish’ button. Visit your website to see the new fonts!

Images and government websites

Posted on April 22, 2019

Images, such as photos and graphics, are a great way to add context to information or personality to government websites. There are a few key areas government website managers should take note of when it comes to images, including: File types Accessibility Optimization Image file types The most common web image file types are .jpg,...

Tips for effective digital response and recovery efforts

Posted on April 2, 2019

ProudCity has supported digital response and recovery efforts for two major California wildfire disasters (Santa Rosa/Sonoma County and Paradise/Butte County), as well as the now-ready Marin Recovers for Marin County (Calif.). While we’re not emergency operations experts, through these experiences, combined with our expertise in digital government product design and development, we’ve learned a great...

Recovers website governance template

Posted on March 19, 2019

This recovers website governance template was adapted with permission from the original policy developed by the Marin Recovers. It was used to help socialize and get buy-in throughout Marin County (Calif.) on governance and protocol ahead of a disaster so that a plan could be acted on if needed. The Marin Recovers team has graciously...

Tools for testing the general health of your government website

Posted on February 15, 2019

There are a number of factors that go into ensuring your website meets general digital government standards and provides a great user experience for the communities you serve. If you are unfamiliar with foundational standards, there are a few tools you can use to test whether your website meets these or needs upgrading. Core areas There...

Guide to Great Government Websites

Posted on February 14, 2019

Here's a presentation deck on what local governments should look for when building (or buying) great websites. Rules for great city websites from ProudCity

Guide to Buying Government Websites

Posted on January 16, 2019

Introduction The Guide to Buying Government Websites empowers government leaders to make holistic, intelligent decisions when it comes to procuring quality online services needed to best serve increasingly digitally-centered communities. Local government leaders must be experts in all aspects of public sector management and, as technology evolves at a rapid pace, you are increasingly challenged...

ProudCity Payments

Posted on January 11, 2019

ProudCity Payments makes it easy to set up, launch and manage every aspect of government web and mobile payments. Uses Permits Tickets/fines Event registrations Taxes and more Features Mobile-friendly: Adaptive to phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, kiosks. Dashboard: Views into payments, payouts, transaction history. Recurring transactions: Create recurring payments transactions. Forms: Unlimited, easy-to-build online payment forms....

Post/page checklist

Posted on December 17, 2018

There are several key components of a government website post or page that should be addressed when publishing either. These include: Title Body Categories Featured image Meta description Keywords Slug Title The title of the post/page is the heading (h1) of your web page. This is the blog post/page title. ProudCity automatically formats the title...

ProudCity login

Posted on December 6, 2018

ProudCity Platform login is managed through Auth0, a security-compliant leader in user account authentication and authorization, ensuring privacy and identity protection when accessing web and mobile applications. Through Auth0, ProudCity login features includes: Single sign-on Universal login Breached passwords detection User management Multifactor authentication These are important features for government, as they seamlessly provide and...

Information architecture

Posted on October 24, 2018

Information architecture is the critical first step to ensuring your digital government content is findable and usable by those seeking the desired information. According to Usability.gov: “Information architecture (IA) focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. The goal is to help users find information and complete tasks. To do...

HTTPS and government websites

Posted on October 23, 2018

Protecting user privacy is an important aspect and duty of any public service organization, and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a fundamental component of online digital government security. HTTPS HTTPS is web security protocol or security certificate that validates and ensures privacy protections are adhered to. As the U.S. federal government states, HTTPS guarantees:...

Post/page duplication

Posted on October 21, 2018

All posts and pages created using the ProudCity Content Management System have features that allow for duplication, saving time on re-creating frequently-published content types with similar information and formatting. To duplicate a post or page: Find this feature in the 'Publish' block on the right sidebar of the create/edit content page Select the 'Copy to...