User research training at GDS

Here are some of the things I learned over 3 fascinating days of user research training at GDS.

Another reason to ditch pdfs

So, we may be a little obsessed about reducing the number of pdfs on our website. Lizzi has already explained the main reasons why pdfs are not the best way to present content. I found another! In the process of converting policy pdfs into webpages, I actually treated the content with the proper respect. I … Continue reading Another reason to ditch pdfs →

Easy read

A year ago, we launched our easy read landing page with 5 pages ranging from ‘bins and recycling’ to ‘marriages and civil partnerships’. At that time, a new easy read button was in development. This is now live and linked at the top of relevant pages. Relevant pages now have an easy read button at … Continue reading Easy read →

Accessible Future in the Public Sector

Last week I attended a Microsoft event about accessibility. It was aimed at public sector organisations who were using (or were going to implement) Office 365. View from above: Microsoft at 2 Kingdom Street Inclusion (and exclusion) The theme of the day was inclusion, both broadly speaking as well with a focus on digital inclusion. … Continue reading Accessible Future in the Public Sector →

Easy read content now available

What is easy read? Easy read is simplified information for adults with learning disabilities. This includes a huge range of different needs and abilities. GOV.UK encourages local authorities to provide easy read information, particularly for key stages and decisions in someone’s life. The information should be distilled to just the key elements. We have 12 … Continue reading Easy read content now available →

Visit our beta!

We have launched a beta version of our new website. The beta includes: homepage (with limited functionality) bins and recycling council tax news Please take a look and let us know what you think. What is a beta? A beta is a great way to test our new website. It’s like a demo – it … Continue reading Visit our beta! →

How the beta came to life

We began this blog not quite 2 years ago – in April 2015, to be exact – though the project had been going prior to this. We took a look at some of the work we did in 2015 in our end of year roundup post. We've come a long way in 2016. Here’s a … Continue reading How the beta came to life →

My way or the highway; creating new content for roads

My first experience of creating structure and content for the new website was for the roads section. We had two workshops about this section. One was with Highway Network Management (which has several teams within it) and the other was with Highway Asset Management. For customers, these teams do one overall thing: look after roads. … Continue reading My way or the highway; creating new content for roads →

Take our homepage navigation survey

We are pleased to have entered the next phase of our website redevelopment and are now testing the structure of our new homepage. We would love to have your feedback – if you have 5 minutes to spare, please help us by taking our homepage navigation survey. Thank you.

How to make an enormous website seem simple

Coming from a private sector marketing background, I’ve been involved in the launch of two new websites, one for a shopping centre and one for a niche B2B company in the airline industry. I thought these were decent sized projects, until recently… Redeveloping the council website is a bit like having to do 10 shopping … Continue reading How to make an enormous website seem simple →