I led a full platform migration and redesign of bryantx.gov, the City of Bryan’s primary digital presence, serving as the city’s lead point of contact with development vendor GovStack and partnering closely with the IT department throughout the build. The project replaced years of rigid, in-house customization with a modern, modular platform built around four core goals: an expandable design system and brand standards, a search-centric user experience, a secure and easily maintainable CMS, and full ADA Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance.
The Challenge
The previous site had reached the limits of years of incremental, in-house customization. Broken breadcrumb navigation, a buried search bar, an external events calendar that fractured search results, and dense, text-heavy page layouts made it difficult for residents to find information and for staff to maintain content without developer support.
Process & Approach
- Directed the project as the city’s lead point of contact, coordinating timelines, content migration, and quality assurance with GovStack throughout the redesign and platform migration.
- Partnered with the IT department to ensure the new platform met ADA Title II and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility requirements ahead of the federal compliance deadline.
- Audited the full site map and content architecture, eliminating orphaned pages and rebuilding the “Services / How Do I…” section around a service-forward model.
- Designed and documented a pattern library and expanded brand standards, intended as the master style guide for all City of Bryan digital platforms going forward.
- Migrated the site to a modular, cloud-based CMS, giving staff across departments the ability to maintain content independently and consistently without custom development.
Results
- Page views up 26% and total users up nearly 20% year-over-year (Jan–Mar 2025 vs. Jan–Mar 2026)
- Active users up 19% over the same period
- Organic search sessions up 28%, growing from 67,000 to 74,000
- Launch email campaign reached over 15,500 subscribers with a 53.2% open rate
