Hengelo is customer-oriented and accessible

At the end of January 2020, the website of the Municipality of Hengelo was completely renewed. The website not only has a new and modern look, the navigation structure and the search function have also been thoroughly overhauled. The new website focuses entirely on the customer and is accessible to everyone.

Top tasks

By analyzing the search behavior and page views of the old site, Hengelo Municipality has obtained a good picture of the pages that are of interest to residents, entrepreneurs and visitors. The most searched pages have been given a prominent place on the homepage based on the top tasks principle. On the new website of the municipality of Hengelo you will find information that matters to you quickly and easily.

Accessible

The website of the municipality of Hengelo attracts an average of 550,000 visitors annually. Almost half of them visit the site with a mobile phone and that is increasing every year. By paying extra attention to accessibility, the website is easy to find and accessible.

Test group

To ensure that the site can be used by everyone, the municipality of Hengelo had the site tested by a test group. This consists of visitors to Hengelo, entrepreneurs and residents, including people with a disability. Even if you cannot see or hear (well), have difficulty with complex texts or cannot use a mouse, the website must be usable.

On-going development

The new website is accessible to everyone, whether you use a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone, thanks to the responsive design. But the site is never finished. The online team of the municipality of Hengelo regularly analyzes the data from the site to keep it as up to date as possible.

Project, design and technology

For the realization of the site, the Scrum project method was chosen. In it, multidisciplinary teams worked on the new website in short sprints. Experts from various organizations were involved in the multidisciplinary teams. The design was designed by design agency Creative Bastards, the technical realization was provided by Webwerf and Seneca and the project management and editorial content was provided by the municipality of Hengelo. The website uses the content management system (CMS) Smartsite and Enterprise Search from Seneca.

Beatka Hasselbeke, Information Strategist at the municipality of Hengelo, managed the project:

“The collaboration with Seneca was positive. It was nice to be able to switch quickly thanks to the short lines. The step-by-step realization of the site is typical of the collaboration period and the chosen Scrum method.

In Twente we have a statement for this:

‘n kötst’n weg um völ te doon is één ding tegeliek anpakk’n" (the fastest way to do a lot is to do one thing at a time).