David Kilby, Managing Editor
CRANBURY — The township’s revised website at www.cranburytownship.org has been up and running since January, but more upgrades are on their way.
Members of the Website Subcommittee are Cranbury Committeeman Dan Mulligan, Township Clerk Kathleen Cunningham and resident Lynne Fox, a commissioner for the Board of Recreation.
The subcommittee met with City Connections about six times in the past year to discuss how to make the website more compatible with new technologies and generally more user friendly.
”We tried to lay out the website so we can get relevant information about community news in a user-friendly format,” Mr. Mulligan said.
The revised website is designed to highlight search capabilities and make the overall site more inviting to users, he added.
”In general, we tried to look at with our vendor what’s a good color combo for an easier reader interface,” Mr. Mulligan added.
Thus, one of the most noticeable changes on the website are the more colorful palates, which were added to make the website more engaging.
”When you’re designing a website, if the colors aren’t easy on the eyes, it just doesn’t make it easy and inviting for people,” Mr. Mulligan said.
Another goal was to give the website more logical organization with menus that make it easier for people to find things.
”A lot of it is design driven,” he added.
Morris Enyeart, president and CEO of City Connections, does many municipal websites and used to serve in municipal government, Mr. Mulligan said.
”He understands what we’re doing and has done many other town websites,” he said.
Mr. Enyeart is also the Internet consultant for the New Jersey League of Municipalities. The clients of his company include the townships of Princeton, Aberdeen, Chatham, Florence, Millstone, Franklin, Hopewell, North Brunswick and West Windsor.
Mr. Enyeart said the original Cranbury website was designed before the days of smart phones and tablets.
”Design capabilities we couldn’t use years ago we could now implement,” he said. “We wanted to do a technology refresh that would enable people to view the website regardless of what they were using to view it.”
The other main goal was to improve the navigation of the site so users can get to where they need to go in less clicks of the mouse, he said.
One of the specific changes is the calendar on the front page. By simply hovering a mouse cursor over each day on the calendar, users now can see township events scheduled for that day.
Also, the size of the type has been enlarged to make text easier to read on the smaller screens of smart phones and tablets.
Visually impaired users also can have their computer read the website menus if they have the correct software for simplifying text.
The scenes of Cranbury on the website are from the Cranbury Photography Club.
”(The photos) certainly represent the community in a very positive light,” Mr. Enyeart said.
He said the pictures are visible on all types of devices from which the website can be accessed.
Mr. Enyeart also said work is being done to imbed a Twitter account into the website.
”It’s very good for municipalities to announce emergencies and road closes,” he said, adding that tweets from the township’s Twitter account would be announced through the website to even those users who don’t have a Twitter account.
Also, he said that, through the account, township departments would be able to post on the website themselves rather than contacting City Connections to do so.
As of now, the township sends information to the company, and it does all of the conversions and posts it to the website the same day.
Also, there is a search engine on the front page, and every day, when new content is added to the website, it’s added to the search engine as well, Mr. Enyeart said.
”We received ideas from different websites, and we went through a decision process for the Cranbury website,” Mr. Mulligan said.
The website upgrade cost the township nothing extra since it is part of an annual agreement where City Connections agrees to make occasional upgrades, Mr. Mulligan said.
In the contract, the township pays City Connections $7,100 a year.
Mr. Mulligan also said the township is looking to enhance the parks and recreation section of the website to make clear what farmland has been preserved and what recreation programs are available.
”It’s there on the website, but we know we can take it to another level,” he added.

