A passionate and capable Digital & Web Services team at Travis County, Texas, works hard to deliver the best possible experience for over 1.3 million residents.
Stacey Wuest is the Digital & Web Services IT Manager at Travis County, with a rich background in government service, moving from the City of Austin to Travis County in late 2021. She leads the Digital & Web Services team within the Information Technology Services department. They support the county’s wide array of online services, including justice, law enforcement, transportation, and natural resources.
Stacey’s team includes two full-time webmasters, a contracted webmaster, two UX/UI designers, and a content strategist. Together, they handle seven public websites, including the main county site at traviscountytx.gov. They manage everything from daily updates to full content management.
They work to keep the county’s websites accessible and easy to use for everyone and are committed to serving the County’s community well.
The team is focused on maintaining digital services and pioneering new strategies to improve the user experience.
Challenges
The team faced two main challenges:
- Managing content and accessibility across multiple departmental websites
- The need for a more intuitive workflow
One key hurdle is how best to manage and monitor all the website content for accuracy and accessibility. Ensuring consistent quality and accessibility across many sites is a colossal task, given the number of websites to manage and their size.
The county took a centralized approach to content management, where website updates and changes are managed by the team. This included responding to requests from staff across the organization.
This model, while ensuring control and consistency, posed significant scalability issues.
Giving individuals across departments the ability to contribute content was necessary, so this change was implemented.
This promised improved efficiency and timeliness in content updates but required cultural and procedural change.
The whole team has been impressed with Silktide. Everybody has their different use case for it. To say that the team is enjoying using Silktide – I think that’s saying something.
Digital & Web Services IT Manager – Travis County, TX
Implementing Silktide
With the transition to a decentralized model, operational challenges with the team’s previous platform became apparent.
They needed a platform to integrate seamlessly into their new workflow. It needed to be user-friendly enough to accommodate contributors across various departments.
After careful consideration, planning, and teamwork, Travis County chose Silktide to monitor its digital web services.
They wanted a platform that was easy to use with comprehensive accessibility checking and analytics. Silktide stood out because it focused on making web accessibility easier to manage.
It’s something that’s become essential for our service. Silktide is very easy to use and it gives us critical information.
Digital & Web Services IT Manager – Travis County, TX
With the decision made, Silktide helped set everything up for Travis County’s many websites. They worked closely with Stacey and her team to get a clear picture of what the county needed.
The setup was all about making Silktide work well for the county from the start. They organized the websites by department to make monitoring and reporting more accurate. Minimal training was needed as the team found Silktide to be intuitive.
Silktide’s analytics tools were also set up. They gave Travis County a great way to see how users acted on their sites and to make smart changes. This combination of tools gave the county a complete picture of how its websites were doing.
The support has been amazing, responsive, and thorough. I always get an answer back that’s helpful.
Digital & Web Services IT Manager – Travis County, TX
How Silktide benefits Travis County
Adding Silktide to Travis County’s online services changed how the team worked. Silktide solved problems, boosted teamwork, improved website access, and helped manage content better.
Teams could assign and track tasks, improving workflow and focus. Everyone contributes to enhancing online services, and staff can refer to Silktide to understand more about what content may need their attention.
Silktide is the primary source of information to tell us which pages PDFS don’t need to be live anymore. It will help us establish content governance moving forward.
Digital & Web Services IT Manager – Travis County, TX
Future plans and expectations
Travis County intends to continue using Silktide for further enhancements to its online services. The platform’s detailed analytics and task management help with daily operations.
The county is dedicated to ongoing website improvement.
An upcoming redesign of its primary website is the next primary focus. The project represents a significant opportunity to redefine the online experience for residents, with an emphasis on creating a service-oriented website architecture.
The goal is to transition the website content from a departmental split into a more user-centric model, where services are easy to find, access, and use, regardless of the department responsible for their provision.
To help with the process, Silktide will offer insights into user behavior, content effectiveness, and accessibility issues.
By leveraging Silktide’s analytics and reporting capabilities, the team can make data-driven decisions about the structure and content of the new website, ensuring that it meets the needs of the community it serves.
The combination of analytics and quality checks in one tool is very helpful.
Digital & Web Services IT Manager – Travis County, TX
Silktide’s feedback mechanisms will allow for continuous monitoring and improvement post-launch, helping the county to swiftly address any issues and refine the site based on real user interactions.
The goal is a more accessible, user-friendly website, enabling the county to adhere to ADA compliance standards and improve the overall user experience.
In summary
The work that Travis County performs makes the county’s online services better. Silktide has helped identify problems and helped the team make ongoing website improvements.
Silktide has changed how the team works. Its easy-to-use setup and detailed analytics have made it easier for more people to help improve the county’s online services. This has led to better informed improvements and a strong sense of responsibility and excellence across the team.
Thanks to the passion and the skill of the department’s team members, the quality of Travis County’s websites continues to improve.
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