(IL-PURPLE-MONKEY) Purple Monkey Studios Launches Redesigned City of Chattanooga Web Site
Business Editors
OAK PARK, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2005--Purple Monkey Studios announced the successful launch of a newly-designed and developed Web site for the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee - www.chattanooga.gov. The site culminates seven months of collaborative effort, and provides site visitors with a colorful image of the progressive city of Chattanooga, along with thousands of pages of information that are organized into three main categories; Live, Work, and Play.
Purple Monkey Studios is no stranger to municipal Web sites. The Village of Oak Park, Illinois also utilized the talents of Purple Monkey to create a look and feel that reflects life in the community and allows users quick access to the information they need. The dynamic design of the Village's Web site was a significant contributor to the City of Chattanooga's decision to choose Purple Monkey Studios to redesign their site.
The City of Chattanooga wanted a site that helped a variety of site visitors find the information they needed quickly and helped citizens connect with their government easily. Residents, tourists, visitors, and citizens with new and existing businesses, were identified as primary audiences during several days of focus groups held by Purple Monkey Studios in Chattanooga. An online survey aimed at Chattanooga-area residents provided additional information on specific areas for improvement.
In addition to audience needs, another challenge was organizing an enormous amount of information to serve the needs of specific audience segments. More than 15 departments, divisions, and city services, including the police and fire departments, the zoo, golf courses, parks and recreation, performing arts, finance, and city council, were included in the site. As is typical with many municipal Web sites, Chattanooga's previous site was organized by internal department; searching for specific information was difficult and time-consuming for most visitors who were not familiar with the departmental structure of the city. In redesigning the structure of the site, Purple Monkey Studios created "mini-portal pages" of information that were grouped by audience type. For example, if you are planning new construction in the city, there is a page of links to various departments for permits, inspections, guidelines, and zoning.
Content management was another important objective; the city of Chattanooga wanted a system that allowed all of their departments the ability to update and add new information quickly and easily. Purple Monkey Studios developed the site using the RedDot content management system, which has been quickly adopted by all non-technical staff updating the site.
"We chose Purple Monkey Studios because of their experience in RedDot development, along with their prior experience with municipal sites," commented Mark Kiehl, Chief Information Officer for the City of Chattanooga. "We were impressed with their technical capabilities, along with their ability to design a site that reflected our city's world-class cultural offerings, and our strong values and diverse character."
"This was a challenging project because we wanted to communicate Chattanooga - its beauty, its progressiveness, its culture - to both residents and to new visitors who may not be aware of this interesting city," said Steven Saraceno, President and Co-Founder of Purple Monkey Studios. "We've developed municipal sites before, so we knew the 'lay of the land' and we enjoyed helping Chattanooga present its beauty and its services with a sophisticated design and intuitive navigation."
About Purple Monkey Studios
Purple Monkey Studios, Inc. is a privately-held, ten-year-old interactive media firm located in suburban Chicago. We specialize in strategic positioning and the custom development of new media solutions for Web, CD, DVD, PDA, and Print-based mediums. We maintain a staff of over 30 full-time employees, including account managers, project managers, graphic designers, programmers, instructional designers, production staff, and testers. We specialize in delivering competitive, high-quality results while remaining adaptable to our clients' changing business needs. As a result, clients like Marriott International, the City of Chattanooga, Discovery Education, the McGraw-Hill Companies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, and Dominican University continue to choose Purple Monkey Studios as a partner. For more information, visit www.purplemonkey.com or call 708-386-3086.