Back to SearchThe City of Kitchener has been working on something exciting – a project that will change the way citizens interact with their local government and city services. For almost three years, staff—together with Kitchener residents—have been imaging, designing, and building a new online experience.
On March 1, 2021, the City of Kitchener unveiled its new corporate website along with a first-of-its kind customer service portal, called MyKitchener.
Citizen input was the driving force and guiding principle behind every decision made on the new online experience. Throughout a series of public engagement opportunities, staff learned that 70 per cent of residents prefer to complete transactions online but could not always find what they were looking for. With this in mind, a small group of City staff put their heads together on how to make information and services more accessible.
More importantly, staff wanted to hear directly from residents and gather their input to ensure the final product was, in fact, what residents asked for. Staff collected user input, both in person and virtually, through user testing sessions to verify design and functional concepts.
The vision was to create a centralized, easy to use, seamless and secure digital experience. This vision started more than three years ago through hallway conversations and “what if” comments. In the spirit of innovation, staff knew they needed to design and build their vision from the ground up to meet the unique needs of Kitchener residents. Further, Kitchener is proud to partner with a local Waterloo Region website developer, eSolutions Group, to create the first ever citizen portal. There is no municipality in Canada offering the kind of holistic and personalized online experience that we developed.
The MyKitchener experience will forever change the way citizens interact with their city. The website incorporates best-in-class web design practices to give residents the information they are looking for right away. Content on the website is written in plain language at a grade 7 reading level, and structured so that voice assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google can use website content to answer popular resident questions.
The MyKitchener portal offers a personalized user experience through a secure login. With a MyKitchener account users can customize their dashboard with content that is relevant to them; view information about multiple properties in one place; receive notifications when new information is available like new skating and swimming events, road closures and school bus delays; view and pay property tax and utility bills; view news and upcoming events; watch a council meeting and download meeting minutes and agendas, and so much more.
Staff have a long list of future improvements and ideas for MyKitchener, but more importantly, want to give citizens an opportunity to test drive the online tools and share their feedback. Kitchener is bravely embracing concepts like beta testing and design thinking principles to ensure the new online experience is designed with citizens top of mind.
Check out the City’s new website at www.kitchener.ca and register for a personal MyKitchener account at mykitchener.kitchener.ca
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