1. By your audience

2.  Get a Phone Number  What hours are they open  Address & map  Do they offer the services I am looking for?  See what the Doctor looks like  See what the building looks like  Find the price of something  Find information related to a problem I am having

3.  Basic information was up front  Visual appeal: Not too much confusing stuff to look through on home page  Not too many clicks  They called it what I call it  There was a way to search  Didn’t take too long to come up relative to other sites  What about you?

4.  Can’t figure out how it is organized  Too many choices..the eye is led all over the place  Some of site is clearly out of date… so can I trust this to be the current answer?  No contact info  Accidentally fall off the site onto other stuff, or I can’t tell if I am still on site  Can’t get back easily  Try your site…frustrating?

5.  Ask your receptionist what are the most frequent questions she gets on the phone.  Does your site answer them?  Are the answers really easy to find?  Do you have a FAQ section? Do you need one?  Can they ask a question if they don’t see an answer.. Are they encouraged to call or email?

6.  It’s not cheating or plagarism!- It’s flattering!  For NC counties, try: http://www.sog.unc.edu/library/counties.html http://www.sog.unc.edu/library/counties.html  Search on your department name like county library or health department and see what you find.  What do they do better?  What do we do better?

7.  Is it like an organization chart? A brochure?  Terminology used…What is Adult Services?  Are the most important services/questions the easiest to find?  How many clicks to find an answer?  Are there lots of ways to get to the same information?  Does anyone care about your Mission statement?

8.  Someone needs to look at your website who does NOT know your business, is NOT used to your terminology.  That may not be YOU!  IT tries to do it for you.

9.  What does this department do?  Is it for me? Do I qualify? Income levels?  What can I do here?  Statistics: people served, number in jail  Can I pay for this online? Why is there a fee?  That new law I read about…does it apply  Pick a department, what do you expect: ◦ Sheriff ◦ Public Health ◦ Library

10.  Read or participate in a blog?  Sign up for a newsletter  Subscribe to an RSS feed

11.  Sometimes is just the author, rambling about whatever  Sometimes interactive  Afraid someone will say something bad  Green Team Blog… Green Team Blog ◦ No comments, but surveys  Ask Library their experience with blogs  We have a couple of ways of accomplishing this, WordPress, blogspot

12.  Not just County e-news ◦ http://www.catawbacountync.gov/pubs/notification s/en081408.asp http://www.catawbacountync.gov/pubs/notification s/en081408.asp ◦ Now available for departments  New tool WordPress makes it easier ◦ http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/psa http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/psa ◦ Library going to try it soon  RSS feed- have enough news? An interested audience?

13. Does Your Site Meet “Expectations” or Does it Disappoint?