Website Redesign & Rebuild

Developing more modern and user-friendly websites.

Our websites are important channels that provide information and services to residents, businesses and visitors interested in the Town of Oakville. We want to offer the best experience that we can, so we’ve redesigned and rebuilt a brand new oakville.ca, oakvilletransit.ca, oakvillecentre.ca and invest.oakville.ca. These sites are rebuilt on new technology and all take on the look and feel of the new oakville.ca.

About the new websites

The purpose of this multi-phased website redesign project was to enhance the overall user experience for you, our online visitors, by improving the way you access information and services on our websites. Our old websites had also reached the end of their life cycle; they no longer met today’s standards of usability, design or technology. The new sites are more user friendly and better positioned for future enhancements and modernization.

Our new websites offer improved:

Access to online services
Accessibility
Compatibility with your devices
Content
Design
Functionality
Navigation
Search results
Privacy and security
User experience

Project history

Timeline

Fall 2019 to spring 2020: Phase one - Discovery and design
Spring 2020 to winter 2021: Project paused due to COVID-19 pandemic
Spring 2022: Phase two - Build, launch and support begins
Summer 2022 through winter 2023: Engage, build and test the new website
March 2023: Complete the redesign and rebuild, and launch the new oakville.ca
June 2023: Complete the rebuild and launch the refreshed oakvilletransit.ca and oakvillecentre.ca
August 2023: Complete the rebuild and launch the refreshed invest.oakville.ca

Past engagement opportunities

Family Day information table - February 20, 2023

Purpose: Give residents a sneak peek and an opportunity to try out the new oakville.ca before it goes live early spring.

Information sessions - February 9, 2023

Purpose: Give residents a sneak peek and an opportunity to try out the new oakville.ca before it goes live early spring.

Navigation activity – June 20 to July 1, 2022

Purpose: To help us understand if the proposed main navigation is intuitive and helps guide users to where content should live on the site.
Participants: 96
Outcome: No trends in feedback to suggest a change to the main navigation. Once the site is built, other features such as expanding menus and search will also help direct users to the topic they are seeking.

Design survey – June 30 to July 10, 2022

Purpose: To help us understand if the look and feel of new website is heading in the right direction.
Participants: 93
Outcome: Access to information and the purpose of features (such as a button) or sections were clearly presented through the design and layout. Due to split feedback on the two options presented for the new header design, a third header was created, bringing together the most preferred features noted from the two presented options

Background

Working with our first vendor, ForwardVu Solutions, we kicked off the opening phase of the website redesign project in 2019 with planning, audits, analysis and engagement exercises to collect feedback about our current website and future needs. ForwardVu wrapped up phase one by providing recommendations and draft designs for our new site.

Following an unexpected pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project restarted in May 2022. Our new vendor for the build and launch of the new Oakville website is E-Cubed. Their first job was to review all recommendations, engagement feedback, draft designs, and other work from the 2019 phase of the project before the build of the new website begins