The year was 1996. Katie Ryan didn’t care who donated money for sculptures, where Lawrence city commissioners met or where people filed zoning applications and proposed site plans.

All the Kansas University student wanted to do was register to vote. And the first things she saw at City Hall an arts plaque, the city commission room and the Planning Office didn’t help.

“Obviously, it’d be more user friendly if they had a directory or someone here to direct you to where you need to go,” her father, Bill Ryan, told the Journal-World at the time. “I figured I’d just ask the first person I saw.”

Problem solved. A directory of offices now sits just inside the front door to City Hall. Not far from there, a service window was put into the Planning Office so a city employee can greet and direct visitors up or down the elevator to find what they’re seeking.

And the commission chambers were renovated for better seating, hearing and presentations at meetings.

The last time user-friendliness became such a high-profile issue at City Hall, officials found solutions by pulling out the hammer, saws and lumber. The renovations came about in 1996 because of a city employee task force ordered by the Lawrence City Commission.

What they found wasn’t pretty.

“City Hall is not a user-friendly building,” the task force said in its final report. “People new to the building have a difficult time finding their way to specific offices or locations to obtain service or information.

“Further adding to the less-than-‘friendly’ experience is that assistance from available staff is not easily accessible. There are few open doors or visible staff persons to ask for assistance.”

With the exception of providing better parking access, most of the changes called for in the report were made. It may not be so easy this time.

“Those were important things,” Mayor Mike Rundle said last week. “But it’s such a small part of the overall picture. Now it’s more about attitude, vision and leadership.”

City Manager Mike Wildgen would argue those shifts happened as well.

“If you look at it, there’s a lot of architectural, physical changes that were addressed, as well as philosophical,” Wildgen said.

Janet Gerstner, an activist from the Oread Neighborhood Assn., agreed. Her first encounters at City Hall six years ago ended in frustration bouncing between planning and inspection departments in a futile effort to turn up a piece of information.

“Basically, the inspections department’s response was to try to get rid of me,” she said.

In recent years, though, Gerstner has seen changes. The information window was the first. Soon the department designated a “planner of the day” to handle public inquiries. Departments stagger their lunches so employees will be available to the public during the noon hour.

“It’s all so much better than it used to be,” she said. “My experiences have been really positive.”