From Scratch to Civic-Ready: A County Website Built for Clarity, Services, and Events
Mason County’s official website centralizes county government information and public services for residents. Visitors can quickly reach the County Commission, Assessor, Sheriff’s Tax Office, Magistrates, Circuit Clerk, and other departments, with pages outlining duties, forms, hours, and phone numbers. General contact information for the Mason County Courthouse in Point Pleasant is readily available, so residents don’t have to search. Residents can also access meeting agendas and minutes, public records request guidance, property tax information and payment details, as well as permits and applications. The courthouse is located at 200 Sixth Street, Point Pleasant, WV 25550.
The Problem
The county needed a modern, accessible website that consolidated departments, forms, and contacts in one place, with simple tools for staff to post events, announcements, and resource links. Photography was minimal and inconsistent, and there was no streamlined way to route public requests to the right office
Our Approach
We designed and built the civic website from scratch with a clean information architecture under “Government” and “Departments,” plus quick paths to frequently used services. We standardized employee headshots for consistent department and leadership profiles. Public-facing forms handle general inquiries and department-specific requests, routing to the correct inboxes. We host and maintain the site, manage updates for events and resources, and keep performance, security, and backups tight so residents reliably find hours, locations, and phone numbers. We shipped with Core Web Vitals in the green and a design aligned to WCAG 2.2 AA.
