A township website residents can actually use
An accessible, maintainable website for Stowe Township, built on the new brand and organized around what residents actually need to do.
With a new identity in place, Stowe Township needed a website to match: one residents could navigate, one staff could keep current, and one that met the accessibility standard public services are held to.
The challenge
The old site was organized around the township’s internal structure, not around what residents come to do. Information was hard to find, the site was not accessible to keyboard or screen-reader users, and updating it was painful enough that it often did not happen.
Our approach
We restructured the site around resident tasks first: pay a bill, find a permit, read a council agenda, check trash and recycling, contact the right office. The information architecture follows what people actually look for, in plain language.
We built it to conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA from the first commit, not as a pass at the end: semantic structure, full keyboard operability, verified contrast using the new brand palette, and forms that work for everyone. The site runs on a content management system the township staff can operate themselves, with editor training and documentation so updates are routine, and performance budgets so it stays fast on older phones and modest connections.
What we delivered
- Information architecture built around resident tasks
- An accessible site conforming to WCAG 2.2 AA, applying the Stowe brand system
- A CMS the township staff can run, with training and documentation
- Performance budgets for fast loads on any device
The township now has a public front door that works for residents and that its own staff can maintain, without a vendor on call.