A township website residents can actually use

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.

Accessibility built in from the first commit

Public-sector sites are held to a real standard, and bolting accessibility on at the end never quite works. We built Stowe’s site to conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA from the start: a proper heading structure and landmarks so screen-reader users can move through a page, full keyboard operability with a focus indicator that is always visible, form fields with real labels and clear error messages, and color contrast verified against the new brand palette rather than assumed. The result is a site that a resident using a screen reader, a keyboard, or a magnifier can use the same way everyone else does, which is the point.

A site the staff can actually keep current

A website is only as good as its most recent update, and the old one stayed stale because changing it was painful. We put Stowe’s content in a management system the staff can operate themselves, with the editing experience kept simple enough that routine changes do not require a call to us. Posting a meeting agenda, updating a trash schedule, or correcting an office’s hours is a few minutes of work, not a support ticket. We paired that with editor training and plain-language documentation so the knowledge does not leave when one staff member does.

Fast on the devices residents actually use

Many residents reach a township site on an older phone or a slower connection, so we held the build to a performance budget instead of letting page weight creep up. The site loads quickly on modest hardware, does not depend on heavy scripts to show its content, and stays usable when the network is poor. Speed here is an accessibility and equity question as much as a technical one.

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.