Did You Notice?

We released some small changes today, did you notice? The changes were a result of the Usability Tests and should be fairly subtle in nature. If you like a challenge, see if you can find the 17 changes, but stop reading now because they will be mentioned later in this post. The goal is to make small changes to enhance the user experience frequently. Some changes may be more noticeable than others.

Behind the Scenes Changes
Some changes were substantial but hopefully you won't notice these at all. The initial launch had far too many CSS stylesheets. While making some of the other changes, we used this opportunity to collapse all the CSS styles into one file. This was a very tedious task, but one that needed to be done to move forward.

Using the Data
When we outlined the I Want To lists for the main and landing pages before the launch, we relied on staff's working knowledge of content people request. The design called for a consistent look across the landing pages, but we have realized if items look too consistent, the changes may go unnoticed. We are using the site analytic data and user feedback to customize the I Want To lists. The first landing pages to get revised I Want To lists are Arts & Parks and Public Safety. The others will be revised soon.

Finally...the Changes

1. Calendar, Maps and Directory moved to upper left for increased visibility
2. Department dropdown list moved to upper left for increased visibility
3. Search moved to upper right, a typical search field location
4. Alerts background image removed for visual clarity
5. Alerts icon added to draw attention
6. Alerts text color changed to match other hyperlinks on site for visual association
7. Most Popular moved to bottom right to balance other changes
8. Most Popular defaults to searches
9. City of Raleigh News items list is one column rather than two columns to make titles more readable
10. Blue background color removed from landing page secondary articles
11. Removed survey from content pages to reduce visual clutter
12. Removed Connect With Us from content pages to reduce visual clutter
13. Moved Alerts above Related Info on content pages to keep Alerts prominent
14. Text changed to black/bold on Related Information headers to improve readability
15. Calendar enlarged
16. Calendar uses more Google Calendar native functions like clickable entries, map addresses, copy to my calendar
17. Employment listings are alphabetized for readability