The 6 sites of the council that were involved in the project were the County Council and Extranet, Town Council, Longford.ie Community Portal, Longford Library (integration only) and also VirtualWriter — an online writers portal.
Prior to redevelopment the various sites were outdated, lacked structure and struggled to meet the requirements to be accessible for users. The sites didn’t engage with the users and had little design focus.
Working closely with the stakeholders for each site MediaOne were able to determine all the requirements in terms of design, content and structure. This information then formed each of the layers making up each of the websites. Each of the sites (excl the Library site) was redesigned and each of the sites was integrated into an enterprise level content management system. This allows the content to be managed and updated across the site and also allows the various sites to successfully share information.
The various sites went live May/June 2008 and were welcomed by the community as they were able to provide a great deal of more useful information to users. Regular news features are provided, there is integration with RSS feeds and microsites for the towns and villages. At the time of launch the site was fully accessible and met requirements for Longford.
