Welcome to Skagit County

January 17, 2014

Skagit County to launch redesigned website

MOUNT VERNON – Skagit County’s website, already popular with an average of 6,000 unique sessions per day, is about to make a splash with improvements intended to make the site even more user friendly.
Those who have bookmarked skagitcounty.net will discover on Tuesday, January 28, that the site has a new look and many new features, including local photographs and a new version of iMap.
An IS staff presentation regarding the website redesign will be given to the Board of Commissioners at their public meeting on Tuesday, January 21 at 11 a.m. Streaming video of this presentation will then be available to the public on Access Skagit Television (Comcast Channel 21, Wave Cable and www.skagitcounty.net).

This is not an off-the-shelf, but “custom built” website – a website that has drawn national accolades.

“Our website was designed more than 10 years ago, with only minor changes since that time,” said John Holmes, Senior Applications Developer. “As we all know, the world of technology is one of constant change, so our website development team has worked to learn and utilize current technology to improve the usability of the site.”
For the past year, a four-member website team has dedicated considerable time to the re-design, conferring with and drawing support from every department under the Skagit County government umbrella.
From property owner to banker, policy watchdog to outdoor adventurer, the new website is designed to please, with data from throughout county government offices integrated with the user in mind.

“Overall,” said Holmes, “the site is more graphical oriented and in tune with current technology standards. We protected the functionality our users have enjoyed, but most of the data driven applications have been rebuilt, and web ‘addresses,’ or URLs will provide better results from search engines like Google.”

Those who may have been frustrated by an inability to use the iMap tool will be excited to find that the new version runs on the majority of current browsers including Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. In addition, it will bring speedier results.

“We are proud of the iMap, which was developed in-house in 2002,” said Geoff Almvig, Manager of Geographic Information Services. “This popular feature provides a graphical view of Skagit County, from topographic base maps to aerial photography. It can be used for a range of purposes such as locating property, viewing crime statistics, determining zoning regulations and a host of other property-related information.”
Examples of other website changes:

It should also be noted that a new site search based on the Google search engine will be implemented shortly after the redesigned site is launched. Also, a video streaming update is planned in March to increase quality and accessibility to “live” meetings and on-demand content.