After a recent redesign where we gained citizen input and opinion through an online questionnaire and a series of focus groups, we believe our site is much easier to navigate and understand. We have organized all of our information into four main areas of content:

Four Main Areas

• Living Here is both our homepage and the area geared towards citizens. This is where most of our information is, and contains what most of the visitors to our site are looking for, thus it is the first page you'll see when you visit our url, www.fairfaxcounty.gov. 'Living Here' pages have a green background.

• Doing Business is an area specifically targeted at individuals doing business in or with Fairfax County. 'Doing Business' pages have a blue background.

• Visiting is an area for individuals interested in visiting different parts of Fairfax County and the surrounding region, who may or may not live here. 'Visiting' pages have a brown background.

• Government provides information about our government's structure, including the Board of Supervisors, management, and budget. There are also lists of our departments and agencies and boards, authorities and commissions. 'Government' pages have a grey background.

You can access these main area pages by clicking on their names next to the large, light circles on each of them, or by clicking their links on the headers and footers at the top of every page (including this one).

Subject Pages

On each of the main area pages there is a list of links to corresponding subject pages (see screenshot to left). Clicking on any of the subject links will take you to a subject page. These subject pages feature information on a given topic, like animals or the environment, supplied by different agencies within our government.

Every page (including this one) features a standard header and footer at the top and bottom, which lets you easily get back to any of the four main area pages, access the 'Using this Site' area (where you are now), or access 'Contact Us,' our database of County phone numbers and email addresses. In addition, the footer at the bottom of every page lets you search our entire site for a given word or phrase, and access 'eServices' - a list of all of our online transactions and applications.

The subject pages begin with a couple paragraphs explaining the subject and incorporating some of the more important links into the text. Below these paragraphs, there are alphabetized categories (brown bars with larger text) with alphabetized links underneath them. These links are where you will find the actual content for a given subject.

Above the introductory paragraphs is a white bar that begins with 'you are here'; this bar lets you know where you are in relation to other relevant areas of the site. You can always get back to the related area or subject page from this box.