The FCC officially launched its long-awaited new website late on December 9. The Commission said its new site “features a more responsive design, a new site navigation structure, and an improved search capability.” The site design features a cleaner, brighter, and more modern look and feel, and the display will adjust to various platforms, from mobile devices and tablets to computers.

“The site has moved from a flat design with minimal linking between pages to a hierarchical design that utilizes cross-linking, menus, and greater clarity of where you are on the site map,” FCC Webmaster David Kitzmiller and FCC.Gov Project Manager Deanna Stephens noted in an FCC website blog entry. “The new site navigation features a ‘toggle’ capability that allows visitors to browse by Category or by Bureau and Office.”

Of particular interest to the Amateur Radio community, the new FCC website design offers prominent links right from the home page to the Universal Licensing System (ULS) -- which looks the same as it always has -- and the Electronic Comment Filing System (EFCS), for proceedings and comment filings.

According to Kitzmiller and Stephens, “extensive user research” determined that visitors to the FCC website “prefer a clear separation of consumer content and practitioner content,” and that the “toggle navigation” protocol lets the FCC adapt its site to meet differing visitor preferences.

The sites new search application combines results from both FCC.gov and the Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) “into a seamless search experience.”

“The user interface also allows for visitors to search only within FCC.gov and EDOCS and provides an array of facets to help further refine search results,” Kitzmiller and Stephens’s blog entry explained. “Work will continue to [refine] the relevancy of the search results.

The FCC said it will continue to work with users to identify and fix any bugs, broken links, or missing content. Users may provide feedback to the FCC via e-mail.