Design study · City government · Missouri
A business district that feels like a neighborhood
A city website concept for a suburb that is simultaneously a regional business centre and a residential neighbourhood, and has to read as both.
Concept only. Not an official City of Clayton website.
- Municipal website design
- Search-first
- Tyler Incode payments
- Citizen requests
- Meetings record
- Accessibility
City of Clayton — open the working site
Case study overview
The problem
A city that houses corporate headquarters and quiet residential streets has two constituencies with different vocabularies arriving at one site. Businesses want permits, payments, and process; residents want services, meetings, and the neighbourhood. Pick one tone and the other feels unwelcome — and underneath both, permit payment is a transaction that has to work with whatever system the city already runs, not an idealized flow.
The approach
Search leads, which neutralizes the vocabulary problem — both audiences can ask in their own words rather than learning the city's structure. Permit payments are designed around Tyler Incode specifically rather than a generic payment concept, since the honest version of this deliverable has to fit the finance system the city actually uses. A citizen request form and a board meetings record cover the resident side, and accessibility is audited rather than claimed.
The result
Nine routes covering permits and payments, citizen requests, board meetings, and search, with a clean accessibility audit.
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