Reviewer walkthrough · Designed for the bid evaluation panel
Walk through the prototype in 12 minutes.
A guided tour through the 10 working surfaces in the prototype, in the order that makes the redesign make sense. Each stop is 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Total time about 12 minutes — less than a coffee. Click 'Open this stop' to jump to the live page; come back here for the next one.
Why a walkthrough?
Bid prototypes are usually click-through decks: a designed home page plus a few mocked screens. This one is working software — every facet filter, every search query, every complaint form actually runs. A reviewer skimming for 90 seconds may miss that. The walkthrough surfaces the working pieces in the order that proves the point.
- 130 sec
Home — audience-first navigation
What this is: The current site's menu has nine department names; the redesign promotes the 'I WANT TO' dropdown — already the site's best UX move — into the primary nav as five audience-first landing pages.
What to look for: Live AirNow strip across the top of every page (47 Davis, 41 Vacaville in prototype mode). Five audience tiles in the 'Why are you here?' grid. The walkthrough grid lower down links to the seven flagship working surfaces.
- 22 min
Live accessibility audit — 89 vs 0
What this is: axe-core ran against 8 current-site pages (89 violations, 4 critical, 3 serious, 82 moderate) and against 16 prototype pages (0 violations). The script is committed in the repo and you can rerun it.
What to look for: Big stats up top. Severity-by-impact table. Per-rule cards with theme-level fix notes. Per-page comparison list. Methodology section at the bottom shows the exact npx command.
- 31 min
Working search — try 'report smoke'
What this is: Real BM25 over a 35-document corpus with synonym expansion and three facets. The current site returns zero results for the obvious phrase 'report smoke'; the redesign returns 11 hits, with synonym expansion shown to the user.
What to look for: Type 'report smoke' — synonym pills appear ('also matching: file a complaint, complaint, smoke complaint…'). Then filter Type: form, Audience: business. Watch the counts update.
- 41 min
Working complaint intake — submit one
What this is: Real form, real validation, real backend, real tracking ID. Replaces today's JotForm. Pick a complaint type, enter a location and 10+ characters of description, click Submit. The endpoint returns a tracking ID and a response SLA tied to the complaint type.
What to look for: Try submitting with bad data (empty location). Watch the validation. Then submit a real complaint and read the confirmation. Spanish sibling at /queja with the same flow.
- 51 min
Faceted forms-finder — 37 forms
What this is: The current site lists 50+ forms as a static deep tree. The redesign filters by who-you-are, what-you-need-to-do, topic, and delivery format. Every row shows last-updated date and format up front so nobody downloads a stale PDF.
What to look for: Filter to Audience: contractor + Format: PDF. Then search 'asbestos'. Counts update as facets click.
- 61 min
Faceted grants-finder — 15 programs
What this is: The District puts $5M+/year through 15 stackable programs. The current site lists them as bullets. The redesign filters by who you are, project type, dollar range, status, and DAC vs district-wide geography, with stack-with chips on every card.
What to look for: Try Audience: ag + Project type: ag-equipment. Three programs match. Read the stacks-with chip on each.
- 71 min
Air quality data hub + open data
What this is: Live AirNow integration for Davis 95616 and Vacaville 95687, 7-day sparkline per zone, PurpleAir community-sensor link, AB 617 program info, plus two no-key no-rate-limit open-data JSON endpoints for journalists and researchers.
What to look for: Live numbers up top with category pills. Two SVG sparklines below with per-day AQI dots. The endpoint cards at the bottom — click 'Open the endpoint' to see the raw JSON.
- 81 min
Brown Act-friendly board meetings
What this is: The current site lists agendas as a flat sequence of dated WordPress posts. The redesign promotes the next regular meeting to a glance card, surfaces highlight bullets on every past meeting, and pairs Granicus video links with agenda packets. Subscribe-by-email is one click.
What to look for: Next meeting card up top with attachment count. Eight most-recent meetings with bullets and pills. Committee cadences at the bottom. The 'Email me future agendas' button goes to the real working subscribe flow.
- 930 sec
Spanish-language sibling pages
What this is: Click the ES toggle in the header. The page swaps to /fresh-air-for-all-es with the same URL depth as the English version. Same for /smoke ↔ /smoke-es, /burn ↔ /burn-es, /permits ↔ /permits-es, /complaint ↔ /queja. The 'Información en Español' dead-end on the current site is replaced with five working Spanish-language vital flows.
What to look for: Click EN/ES toggle in the header on each paired page. The Spanish content is a real translation, not a Google Translate widget.
- 103 min
From → To → Why decision log
What this is: Every redesign decision paired with the specific audit finding that motivated it. Information architecture, accessibility, search, forms, data, platform, PDF library — each one shows the current state, the redesign state, and the reason. Push back on any of these; they're draft decisions.
What to look for: Scroll through the six groups. The 'What's NOT in scope' card at the bottom lists what stays as-is (WordPress CMS, AllPaid, Granicus, etc.).
Done with the walkthrough?
Two related artifacts to read alongside:
- The Pre-Audit Appendix. 22 specific findings from the live audit of the current site, each paired with the named theme-level fix.
- The Sample Deliverables Appendix. Mocked design-system docs, axe-core test report, content migration plan, CMS user guide, handoff README, and repository structure — what the District will actually receive at launch.
Both are attached to the proposal PDF. Or, if you'd like to ask anything live, FAQ #15 says vendor phone calls are welcome — stephen@stoa.works.