Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Department of Innovation and Technology today launched the redesigned City of Chicago website (https://www.chicago,gov). The updated website features incremental and critical design changes to improve usability and accessibility. This is the first redesign since 2010.

This latest redesign makes the City’s website more user-friendly to help create a better experience for both residents and visitors to the City. The website is now mobile-friendly, making it accessible to the majority of users who access the site from smartphones or tablets. The website presents key services and transactions, such as applying for licenses, front and center and makes these services accessible from all pages to help users find information quickly and easily. Additionally, the website streamlines navigation, follows accessibility guidelines and is optimized for screen readers.

“The updated City of Chicago website reflects our goals to better serve and communicate with residents and visitors to the City,” Mayor Emanuel said. “The redesign embraces a modern and streamlined effort to help improve this communication and make information about city services easily accessible to all.”

City departments have updated and improved web presences, with pages reorganized to emphasize information about the core services that each department provides. Additional updates to department sites will rollout over the next few months. All pages are easier to read due to an improved color scheme, and new images and graphics make the site more inviting and give a more modern, innovative feel.

“Our goal is to improve the online experience for our users. By updating the city’s website, we hope to make it easier to access city services and find the data or information you need from any device,” Department of Innovation and Technology CIO and Commissioner Danielle DuMerer said. “We look forward to getting feedback to inform future improvements, and better serve the City.”

As part of the City’s online revamp, the Chicago Department of Public Health and Smart Chicago Collaborative launched a reimagined Chicago Health Atlas, an updated website that provides residents and stakeholders with citywide and community level public health data from over 160 health and health-related indicators. In addition to vital health information such as birth outcomes, mortality rates, health behaviors and hospitalizations, the Atlas provides data on diverse topics such as behavioral health, injury and violence, education, housing and transit.

“Thanks to generous support from the Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute, the Chicago Health Atlas makes it possible for Chicago to use community level health data to make informed-decisions about policy recommendations, planning efforts or strategic investments,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner, Julie Morita, M.D. said. “The Atlas is about empowering our partners and residents with accurate and timely data so that everyone can learn more about the health and well-being of our communities.”

Led by the Department of Innovation and Technology, the website redesign will continue to be updated based on user feedback gathered from a survey on the website.

Explore the improved website at https://www.chicago.gov.

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