Today we are releasing Open Police 2.0, a brand new open-source platform specifically built for the various websites of the Belgian Police. It uses a component based architecture. Written in PHP 5.3, HTML, CSS and Javascript, and made by passionate open source technologists.
This newly developed platform is the successor of the Joomla distro we released in 2011. The Joomla distro still had a lot of pitfalls mostly because of Joomla’s complexity. Most websites had a complicated structure and were not targeted towards the needs of its visitors.
Mobile-first
With the increase of mobile visitors a new design was developed from the ground up. We've also completely rethought the information architecture using a Mobile-First strategy.
"With the increase in popularity of mobile devices, it is important to provide all new and prospective information in the format that is right for the citizen, whatever their device. Open Police 2.0 is the beginning of this process as we aim to improve our services online."
– Marc Alen, Coach ICT (VCLP/CPPL)
The aim of the new design is to provide the best user experience for citizens, whatever their device. We've taken a major step towards providing easy to find information.
Easy-to-use
One of the key objectives was to make it much easier for webmasters to manage their content. The biggest difference between Joomla and this newly developed platform is that it only contains functionalities that are explicitly required.
We do not store the content in one centralized ‘content’ component. Instead, every content type (news, traffic info, contact information, …) is implemented as a separate reusable component which exposes a custom tailored interface and workflow.
Benefits
- Conforms to WCAG 2.0 level AAA
- Leverages WAI-ARIA & HTML5 to further enhance accessibility
- Support for HTML data (Schema.org)
- Mobile-First Responsive design
- Follows a Progressive Enhancement strategy
- Optimized for performance
Check the first website at www.lokalepolitie.be/leuven.