December 5th, 2020
The previous North Carolina 811 website went live over 7 years ago and many things have changed on the web during that time. The old site was what’s known as split site. One version for desktop computers and one for mobile devices. This format worked well for awhile but an update was needed badly.
The new site was built from the ground up in WordPress, giving us more design possibilities than ever before. It took months to restructure and design. Then it was tested internally for two months before releasing it to the public. It is now scalable and responsive, but what does that mean? Responsive, allows the website to look good regardless of the device you are viewing it on and scalable means it is compatible across all browsers. So, whether you are using Chrome or Safari, on Android or iOS,on a desktop or on mobile, the site looks and works great everywhere.
What else is new? When we took on the task of re-building the website we did it from the point of view of an individual that knows nothing about 811, the process or our industry terminology. Many sections of the site have been completely re-written to meet this goal. The structure and navigation have been updated as well. The old site had over 50 pages of content, making it difficult for new visitors to locate what they needed. Through consolidation and eliminating outdated materials we now only have 35 pages and most of them reside in the Education section of the site.
You will notice that the homepage has content links front and center our returning visitors use the most to make it easy to quickly navigate to those sections. These large buttons also look great when viewing the site from mobile devices. When you visit pages within the site you will notice that we have compressed content on many pages into what is called an accordion layout. Simply click on the plus icon next to the information you wish to see and that content will expand out for you. This helps visitors avoid scrolling up and down that page searching for what they need.
Speaking of searching, we have added a search bar at the top of every page of the site. Simply type in what you are looking for and a list of options based on your search will appear so you can go directly to what you need.
For those of you that have shortcuts or favorites you have saved in your web browser to certain sections of our old website, you will need to make new shortcuts due to url changes that have occurred on the site.
NC811 will endeavor to provide our visitors with engaging content and a pleasing user experience on our website. If you have any suggestions or improvements you would like to see on the new NC811.org website, please reach out to our Media Relations Specialist and Web Master Steven Moore at smoore@nc811.org