Find it, do it, and go

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Find it, do it, and go
Steve Brailey Allerdale Borough Council
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Allerdale Borough Council website

• Resources
• A brief history
• Design and usability
• Search, A-Z
• Website systems
• Content, testing
• Marketing and take-up
• Success factors and challenges
• Developments 2009

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Allerdale

• Population93,500
• Residential properties44,900
• 2 tier Cumbria County Council and 6
  districts/boroughs
• Website customers per month30,000

Mix of old industrial towns e.g. Workington,
tourist areas e.g. Keswick, and rural areas to
the North.
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Resources
Steve Brailey eGovernment Project Manager since
2001 Strategy, web application security, Google
Mini search, A-Z application, back-office
integration

• 2.5 FTEs
• Duplicate skills
• Development skills in-house
• 34 CMS editors in services/depts
• 39,000 pa including Internet GIS mapping
  (excluding staff costs)

Glenn eGovernment Officer since 2004 CMS
administration, CMS plug-in development, graphic
design, testing for standards compliance
IT Services (12)
John eGovernment Assistant since 2008 eforms
development, website testing, helpdesk support,
CMS editor training, CMS content approver
Daniel Media Relations Officer since 2008 emedia,
forum moderation, social networking sites, video
production, Writing for the web and Plain
English training
Comms marketing (2)
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A brief history

• 2000

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A brief history
2001

• New corporate branding in 2001
• In 2006

2004
2006
Wayback machine - http//www.archive.org/web/web.
php
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Usability

• Website in 2006
• Usability study by Cumbrian company
• Cost 5,500
• Video footage of mouse movement

Issues with left menu, user scrolling,
search Complete redesign
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Design

• Adverts on the right

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Design

• 2006-09
• In-house design
• Fully resizable
• Focussed on content top left to middle

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Screen resolutions
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Find it - Search

• Google Mini
• Search box in central position
• 46 customers coming from Google(55 from search
  engines)
• Problem with search quality

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Find it - Search

• Added hidden keywords
• Included explanation of what were doing, and why

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A-Z

• Includes central government
• Includes County services
• Includes 3rd sector
• 739 entries
• No phone/email details
• Swine flu?

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A-Z

• Auto updating A-Z
• Bespoke application uses Google search API
• Application runs 2am every morning

Immediacy CMS
Google searchAPI calls
Service page URL
Asp.Net plug-in
Adult social care sitecumbria.gov.uk -filetype
doc -filetypepdf
http//www.cumbria.gov.uk/adultsocialcare/
SQL A-Z
.Net application
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Website systems
Front office

• Hosted on-site
• Immediacy CMS (Alterian)
• CMS plug-ins to add dynamic/transactional content
  to a page

Immediacy CMS Live
85 Asp.Net plug-ins
Hourly upload
Immediacy CMS Staging
3 content approvers All in IT
85 Asp.Net plug-ins
Back office
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CMS Plug-ins

• Fast development
• No suppliers involved
• Standards compliance is in our control

Plug-in
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Website systems
Front office

• IDOX eforms
• Joint project with Eden DC
• Standard template
• Submitted eforms feed into workflow, CRM and/or
  email

Immediacy CMS Live
85 Asp.Net plug-ins
IDOX eforms
Civica Comino EDRMS workflow
Immediacy CMS Staging
85 Asp.Net plug-ins
Northgate Front Office CRM
MS Exchange email
Back office
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Do it - eforms

• 87 of forms interactive online
• 700 to 1,100 forms submitted per month
• Forms per 100 visits 2.3 to 4.5

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Website systems

• Information download application
• Scheduled to run every hour
• Errors in feeds?No affect on website
• Developed in-house

Website availability stats
MetOffice weather feed
Tourism events
Local news
Immediacy CMS
Asp.Net plug-ins
Web services
ftp
RSS
SQL
.Net updating application
XML
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Website systems

• Videos
• System developed for Comms Marketing
• Includes a transcript for every video
• Youtube 5,164 views
• Website 750
• Streaming service in Holland

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Supplier systems
Bespoke template

• Seamless integration
• User confidence
• Usability
• The brand!
• Bespoke template or iframes inside our CMS

iframe
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Use of location

• Postcode entry on home page
• Some in-house development with the supplier

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Use of location

• Reporting for environmental services
• Google Maps to identify location
• Eastings/Northings stored to identify hotspots
• Google and Microsoft mapping limited to reporting

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Content

• Comms Marketing working with service areas
• Plain English and Writing for the web workshops
• Focus on top service pages

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Content

• Consistent page structure
• Service information
• eforms
• Downloads
• Related links
• Contact information
• Utility belt
• print, send to a friend, feedback, listen to
  page, social bookmarking links

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Testing

• SiteImproveSpelling, links
• Google webmaster tools
• Manual test twice a day, includes transactional
  systems
• Mystery shopper exercise for email

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Marketing and take-up

• Council in a click campaign
• IEG funded 30,000
• Local press interest?

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Marketing and take-up

• Kiosks
• 5 locations
• Home pages come from our CMS
• Different links for kiosks managed centrally
• Developed in-house

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If they dont go?

• Forums
• Be brave
• Need moderation (Comms Marketing)
• Subscriptions to
• sms alerts
• Council meeting topics

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Critical success factors

• Design
• Developers in-house
• Good working relationship with Comms Marketing
• Director support
• Member support

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Challenges

• Supplier systems
• Test systems and upgrades for accessibility
• Seamless integration?
• Web application security testing

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Challenges
Having been advised by development the
Javascript issues for Weekly Lists would require
a significant amount of development to maintain
the same functionality without Javascript, this
development is currently not within the scope of
the project. In order to achieve the AA
Compliance standard the developers have written
this page to be Javascript aware if it is
detected that Javascript is not enabled an
alternative page is displayed advising that
Weekly Lists are not available without Javascript
but that the same information can be accessed by
selecting a date range when using the Application
Search screen.

• Suppliers
• Failure to deliver whats promised
• Lack of knowledge on standards
• Poor coding of applications

JavaScript disabled - Show the following text
above the weekly lists table (clicking on the
numbers will do nothing)... "Note Javascript is
disabled, or not supported, in your browser. To
see the applications representing a particular
date range, please use the Application Search
facility."
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Challenges

• Suppliers
• System installed 2001
• Promised 2009 that v8.2 was accessible (AA
  compliant)

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Challenges

• Channel silos
• Breaking them down
• No high level analysis of channel use or
  economics
• Website visitors are customers
• Did you know you can
• Use kiosk to pay your parking fine
• Use the website to do this

Our own local stats agree with SOCITM website
survey Over twice as many customers are using
the website compared to all the other channels
combined
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Challenges

• Funding
• 20 million budget
• 3.5 million cuts
• In 12 months
• The next 5 years?
• Opportunity?
• Shared IT Service

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Challenges

• Shared services

?
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Developments 2009

• Use intelligence
• Surveys
• Google Mini search log
• Google Analytics stats
• eforms usage stats
• Feedback forms
• Georeferenced data from eforms and CRM

Allerdale Citizens Panel asked which sources of
information about the council they would not
consider, 52 said a Council website
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Developments 2009

• Links direct to forms
• Add appropriate Ajax features
• Improve left menu
• Extend RSS feeds
• TwitterFeed for RSS?
• Web page user evaluation (smileys?)

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Developments 2009

• Related links
• Task based
• Information based
• You might also want to
• You might also be interested in

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Developments 2009

• Personalisation
• Facebook applications
• Google Gadgets

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Developments 2009

• Identify top tasks and refine processes (as per
  Gerry McGovern)
• Live user testing

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Finally
A website visitor is a customer

• Help them find it and do it.
• Invest your resources in this
• and help them go

Support the proposed SOCITM interest group for
public sector web professionals
steve.brailey_at_allerdale.gov.uk