09 Dec 2025 · Civic tech
By Yerlin Ugarte
A municipal site is not a brand exercise. It is a desk. It should behave like one.
Working on a portal for the Alcaldía de Belén forced a set of rules I now apply to any public-facing product. Say what the page can and cannot do. Do not pretend a demo is an official transaction. Put procedures where people look for them. Write in the language of the town.
Civic software also has a duty of calm. High contrast, large type, no dark patterns, no fake urgency. The person on the other side may be requesting a civil-registry orientation or reporting a street. They are not a lead.
If more public institutions treated their websites as service desks rather than announcements, trust would follow. That is a product decision, not a communications one.