To:          LCB Website Visitors

Fr:          LCB Communications and IT Teams

Re:         New Website Launches Tonight  

This evening, the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) is launching an updated and refreshed website. This is a big step forward in security, flexibility, and modernizing the look and feel of the website. The website address, lcb.wa.gov, will not change. However, if you have saved links on the site that you frequent, on Tuesday or later please check to see that they did not break during the transition. 

User-Focused

The new site fits the mold of current open-source sites. It has longer, scalable, mobile-friendly pages. We worked closely with the vendor team’s design experts on its development. Beyond look and feel, we took a deep dive into the site’s structure, the analytics that pinpointed where users visit on our site, then built the framework around how users access and move around our site. For example, we know that most people visit our website to conduct a transaction such as to get a banquet permit, pay taxes, or take the quiz for their MAST permit. The new site is built to quickly serve those types of users.

We also tested the “usability” of the revised site structure with staff and stakeholders over the summer. These testers were asked to carry out a series of common and unique tasks. They then provided feedback that we used to refine the design.

Structural Differences

As noted above, there are some structural differences to facilitate the transactional needs of site visitors. We’ve also simplified where appropriate and combined or eliminated duplicative content, particularly on FAQ or resource pages. Content on the legacy site may live somewhere else on the new site or combined with similar information to make it easier for users to find.

For the most part, hyperlinks should stay the same, though some less-frequently visited content may have been relocated or wrapped into another page on the same topic. An example of this is that all individual “Contact” pages now live in an agency-wide “Directory” page. We also have a new resource library where all educational materials are housed.

Contact

Please reach out if you have questions about where information may have ended up. Please send an email with your inquiry to [email protected]

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