The Legislature has a new website, developed by the Richmond-based Bluehouse Group, and launched just in time for the new Legislative session, which opens this week.
Luke Martland, director and chief counsel to the Vermont Legislative Council, said this week that the new website was one of four projects that topped his list when he came into his new position three years ago, and it was recently completed.
“The old website had been done in house quite a few years ago, and it had a lot of information on it, but it was hard to find,” Martland said. “It was not intuitive and it was out of date.”
Martland said the website project went out to bid, and Bluehouse Group, a company based in Richmond, was selected for the job.
“It was an exciting and challenging project,” Greg Brand of Bluehouse Group said on Tuesday. “We did have a tight timeframe. We couldn’t be late, because of course, the legislature convenes, but it was an exciting project for a few reasons.
“We recognized what a vast improvement we could contribute and the impact it would have for the people inside the Statehouse and really for all Vermonters.”
The goal was to improve the transparency of government activities in Montpelier and to construct a website that would be very easy for people to use, “and I think we did that,” Brand said.
The company signed the contract in the summer, as soon as the session ended, which, Martland said, gave the website designers about six months.
“Our goal was to have it built by the beginning of the current session,” Martland said. “It was an unbelievably tight deadline, from the beginning of the process to turning on a brand new website,” which went live last week, just in time.
Bluehouse made that deadline, and Martland said the website is delivering what the state had hoped for and more.
“They did a phenomenal job,” said Martland. “They were just wonderful.” He said internal information technology department at the legislative council and “other folks from the legislative council and other officers,” pitched in and helped with the process and testing of the new site.
Martland did not want to say what the cost of the new site was initially, and VTDigger was asked to submit a public records request, which was filed via email to Martland on Tuesday.
Martland did say of the new site, “It was cheaper and faster” than some other state websites that have been designed and built, and cost as much as 40 percent less in one instance. The state had issued a Request for Proposals for the site, and went with the best plan and the best price, Martland explained.
The total cost of the contract with Bluehouse Group for the new website was $162,000, according to information sent following the public records request.
Martland said the state is hoping to continually grow the site and keep it up to date. “We’re hoping every year we can keep doing improvements,” he said. The council is “looking at a contract with them,” he said of the Bluehouse Group for that work, but is uncertain as yet, “how much work it would be,” said Martland.
The new website is loaded with photography, and symbols near and dear to Vermonters’ hearts, too. “It’s a lot prettier,” Martland said.
The former state website, still visible in some parts as archives on the new site, was about eight years old, with “the underlying structure of it” constructed even longer ago, said Martland.
From finding out what’s on a committee’s calendar to looking up a legislator, or using the search function, navigating the site is easier, more clear, and, as Martland hoped, more intuitive.
At the bottom of the home page are photos such as a gavel for the box that reads “Legislative Schedule,” or a shot of the legislature in session, the box for which reads, “Who is my legislator?” or a photo of the Statehouse, flowers in full bloom, for “Visit the Statehouse.”
