SAN DIEGO - In its continuing effort to provide easy-to-access information about services to the public, the City of San Diego unveiled its redesigned web site today (www.sandiego.gov). The changes provide simpler and improved navigation to programs, news, projects, and other information.

"The new design for the City's web site is a major improvement to help our citizens quickly and easily find the information they need," said Richard Wilken, director of the City's Information Technology and Communications Department that oversees the web site's development.

The web site's homepage has been completely redesigned and re-organized with a primary emphasis on presenting information from a citizen's perspective, not an organizational perspective. New elements that will serve the citizens who access the site each month include:

• A web features section with timely information of importance to citizens including emergency situations and alerts, City priorities, major issues and events, and seasonal items. For example, the current web feature points citizens to the Canyon Fire Safety Guide to help them prepare this year's fire season.

• "I Want To" sections that link citizens with the most commonly-visited pages. When citizens know exactly what they want, but don't know how to get it, they can try the "I Want To" sections.

• Specific categories for business, community, leisure, job opportunities, and visitors along with a beefed-up "Services A-Z" section.

• An enhanced search capability.

• Grouping many of the links on the home page that previously required going to an index page.

• Index pages, also known as "bucket" or "channel" pages, with "I Want To" sections, a features section, a directory, and pull down menus with links to additional services or resources.

"We based our changes on industry best practices, the input we have received from the public, and empirical data on what citizens look for most on the present site," said William Cull, the City's e-Government Program manager who supervised the redesign. "We will continually update the web site to provide citizens with the most current information."

Cull pointed out several of the leading features that can be found on the new web site in the "I Want To" section:

• Your Residential Services - an interactive application that creates a map of City services surrounding any given address or intersection.

• Street Services Request System - an online form for submitting requests for pothole repairs and other street maintenance requests that allows citizens to check the status of work.

• LIVE Webcasts of City 24 Television - City Council Meetings and other programming on the City's cable channel can be watched 24-hours each day on the web.

• ePermits - Residents and contractors can process simple, no-plan permits electronically, on-line using a credit card.

• Library Book Renewal - Library books can be renewed online.

The City of San Diego has been a leader in web site design since its online presence debuted in 1994. Each month between 450,000 and 500,000 users access the City's website. For two years in a row, an annual survey of residents has shown that more than 90 percent of San Diego citizens rate the web site as "good" or "excellent," and the City has received several major honors for the web site:

• Earlier this year, the MuniNet Guide and Review selected it as one of the top municipal web sites in the country for the fourth time in five years.

• In 2001, the web site received the highest ranking of America's 70 largest metropolitan areas by Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy.

• Also last year, a study by the Civic Resource Group recognized San Diego as having one of the three best web sites of all major metropolitan cities.

The majority of the changes to the new web site were done in-house by Information Technology and Communications Department staff, saving the City nearly $300,000 in web site design costs, Cull said. The redesign is the first of three phases. The first phase gives citizens two ways to access e-government, from a service perspective and a department or organizational perspective. The next phase will provide another alternative, the "mysandiego.gov" perspective, where portal technology will use searching, book marking, and customization to allow citizens their personal online view of City government. A final phase will incorporate "push technology" where a citizen can electronically subscribe to be notified when news, events, and items of particular interest to them are added to the City's web site.