Originally published March 2025 in the Houston Landing:
Among the most visited webpages for the city of Houston and Harris County is the home page. Houston’s home page was viewed 1.6 million in fiscal year 2024; 2 million people accessed the county’s home page.
Making those pages easy to navigate is important, researchers say.
“You can’t prioritize everything. If you prioritize everything, you prioritize nothing,” said Rebecca Woodbury, a local government website content designer. “Editing your home page and making those tough decisions and saying ‘no’ to some department who wants their thing on the homepage.”
So what are the first things that residents see when they visit a local government home page?
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Researchers say that solely uploading information onto a webpage does not go far enough and there should be a focus on simplifying content and making it easy to understand.
Shortening sentences, breaking up text with descriptive headers and making use of bullet points are the top recommendations Woodbury advises her government clients.
“With those three steps, they have probably improved their readability by a couple of grades,” said Woodbury, who is also founder of the Department of Civic Things.
Woodbury uses a software application to test readability. When text is entered, the app provides color-coded feedback regarding sentence complexity and reading level.
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“Plain language training is the best bang for your buck training,” Woodbury said. “(It) will help you write better web content. It’ll also help you write better emails, and you’ll probably be a better spouse.”