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Bolsover’s Story...
SOCITM
Building website take-up and citizen e-engagement
14th December 2010
Fil Thurlow
Dedication
This story is dedicated to anyone who... Has... Is... Or will be developing their website
Once upon a time
This is the story of www.bolsover.gov.uk
Of identifying a problem Of understanding our customers Of redesigning our content Of implementing an open source solution Of project reflection
Contents
Preface Chapter 1 – The problem Chapter 2 – The solution Chapter 3 – The review
Preface
Where are we? About Bolsover Social factors
Where are we?
Where are we?
About Bolsover
Status: Shire District Region: East Midlands County: Derbyshire Juxtaposition: 1 of 9 local authorities in the county Comprising: 14 town and parish councils
Social factors
Population: 70,000 + Historical: Ex-mining heritage Economic: Largely working class Political: Labour majority, Dennis Skinner MP (40+years) Infrastructure: M1 junctions / centrally placed
Chapter 1 – The problem
State of play: www.bolsover.gov.uk Acknowledge How did we do things? What did we use? Understanding our customers Managing our content Summary
www.bolsover.gov.uk
www.bolsover.gov.uk
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Customer comments
“When i have been on this site it takes you round and round you can never get the ansews you want or find what you are looking for and I'm not the only one who feels this whole web site needs sorting out. you can go to another Council web site and it is much easier to find what you are looking for BDC is not and easy site”
“Why can't someone make this web site more user friendly I have had more bad comments about this stupid web site than i have on any other”
“t would be helpful to make accessing the information required easier. I have still not found the correct information despite going down various suggestions by your site.”
Acknowledge
The website is not up to standard... Does not work in parts!
And... It has not been “worked on” for 5 years!
But... We don’t have any budget to spend!
Actually... We need to save money in IT!
Sound familiar?
How did we do things?
Organisation Structure Working practice Product Architecture
Organisation
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Ownership: Customer services Managed: Communications / IT (co-operatively?) Administered: Communications / IT (co-operatively?) Edited: Devolved content editors Developed: IT Supported: IT Approved: Communications
Structure
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER
RESOURCES DEPT
CUSTOMER SERVICES &
PERFORMANCE DEPT
OTHER DEPTS / SERVICE AREAS
IT TEAM
Web Development Officer
CONTACT CENTER TEAM
CUSTOMER ACCESS TEAM
Communications Manager
Equalities Officer
Content Editors x 12
COMMS TEAM
Contact Center Managers / Staff
Working practice
Content editors: Draft changes
Communications Manager: Approve edits Create content Design input
Web Development Officer: Coding (HTML / CSS / scripts / templates / etc.) Technical resources Best practices WAI W3C Etc...
What did we use?
Architecture
What did we use?
Product Initially bought in Annual costs e.g. support / maintenance
CMS Unreliable Difficult to use Expensive Complicated Etc...
Website No SEF URL’s Confusing menu system Disorganised Etc...
What did we use?
Conclusion: Failing everybody’s requirements!
Understanding our customers
Demographic Race Employment Education Disability
Source: www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk
Race
Statistic Bolsover District East Midlands England
White 99% 94% 90%
Asian <0.4% 4% 5%
African <0.1% 1% 1%
Other <0.5% 1% 4%
Employment
Statistic Bolsover District East Midlands England
Economically active employees Full-time 36% 42% 42%
Economically active employees Part-time 12% 14% 13%
Economically active Self-employed 5% 9% 10%
Economically active unemployed 4% 3% 4%
Economically active student 1% 4% 4%
Economically inactive Retired 15% 15% 15%
Economically inactive Looking after home and family
7% 7% 7%
Economically inactive Permanently sick / disabled
10% 6% 5%
Education
Statistic Bolsover District East Midlands England
People aged 16-74 with: No qualifications 44% 34% 30%
People aged 16-74 with: Highest qualification attained level 1*
20% 19% 17%
People aged 16-74 with: Highest qualification attained level 2*
19% 20% 21%
People aged 16-74 with: Highest qualification attained level 3*
6% 9% 10%
People aged 16-74 with: Highest qualification attained level 4*
11% 18% 22%
Disability
Statistic Bolsover District East Midlands England
People with a limiting long term illness
26% 18% 17%
Managing our content
Analytics Visitors Browsers Search keywords Traffic sources Landing pages Top pages / tasks
Source: socitm.govmetric.com www.google.com/analytics www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Visitors (average monthly)
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Visits (20,000) Unique Visits (15,000) Page views (80,000) Pages per visit (4) Time on site (3mins)
Browsers
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Statistic Bolsover District World
Internet Explorer 80% 29%
Firefox 12% 44%
Chrome 5% 21%
Other 3% 6%
Statistic Bolsover District World
IE 8 60% 62%
IE 7 25% 23%
IE 6 15% 15%
Search keywords
www.bolsover.gov.uk
bolsover district council bolsover council bolsover bolsover castle www.bolsover.gov.uk creswell leisure centre bolsover district council planning kissingate leisure centre bolsover dc bolsover jobs
Traffic sources
www.bolsover.gov.uk
google / organic (direct) / (none) bing / organic yahoo / organic facebook.com / referral aol / organic local.direct.gov.uk / referral direct.gov.uk / referral 4barsrest.com / referral themouthpiece.com / referral
Landing pages
www.bolsover.gov.uk
NB. Analytics results with the old product: /Default?PageID=0 (home page) /Default?PageID=3872 /Default?PageID=8877 /Default?PageID=9100 /Default?PageID=4383 /Default?PageID=8393 /Default?PageID=3229 /Default?PageID=6971 /Default?PageID=5051 /Default?PageID=2885
Landing pages
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Interpreted analytics results: / (home page) Environment overview Bolsover brass festival Contact us Council news Bolsover castle Planning applications home Creswell leisure centre overview Council tax home Housing benefit overview Current vacancies
Top pages / tasks
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Analytics results with the new product: / (home page) Environment Planning applications Viewing applications Contact us Current vacancies Jobs and careers Housing Leisure and culture Planning Council and democracy
Summary
Customer understanding: The demographic distribution of Bolsover's population Need to tailor content accordingly What they are looking for (information) What they wanted to do (tasks)
Characteristic understanding: The browser technology used Content search behaviour
Chapter 2 – The solution
Proposal The open source project Implementation
Architecture Project Product
Migration Testing Going live
Proposal
We need to change this!
Use something that is... Minimal expense Readily available Easy to use Etc...
So...
What about open source?
Research Compare Test the options Choose the system
The open source project
What is out there? Systems used by other local authorities E-Gov Register by Brent (now SOCITM Applications register)
Online resources Over 6 million results on Google for “open source cms”
Research
www.idealware.org/reports/2010-os-cms
Research
www.cmsmatrix.org
Compare
www.opensourcecms.com
Test the options
Choose the system
www.joomla.org Product: Advantages
Recognised Freely available resources Easy to use Modular Scalable
Most importantly - Meets our requirements!
Implementation (Architecture)
Architecture
Implementation (Project)
Project Meet corporate target deadline (mid 2010)
Milestones included… Formalising content structure e.g. internal vs. external Simplifying the navigation e.g. Context menus Template design e.g. layout / look and feel Verifying compliance with standards e.g. W3C validation Ensuring accessibility guidelines met e.g. WAI Creation of test plans
Implementation (Product)
Product Info www.joomla.org
Support forum.joomla.org
Development extensions.joomla.org
Resources community.joomla.org
Training docs.joomla.org
It’s all free and online
Implementation (Product)
Issues: Generic CMS e.g. out the box basic features only
Warnings: Extensions - not all are up to standard Modules - read the reviews
Advice: On every issue, someone has previously tried to walk our path Straight forward to override presentation / functionality
Migration
Did not import / migrate back-end DB Decided against using import extensions
Forced content review
Removed the ROT... Redundant – press release history Outdated -20% of pages not updated for over 5 years Trivial – news stories about the 2007 fireworks display
Total pages reduced by 75%
Only relevant content used in new CMS
Testing
Test...
Test again...
Test some more...
Finally Sign off test scripts
Going live
Project started 1st March 2010 Website launched 30th June 2010
Chapter 3 – The review
Success metrics Learn AIM to be better The website today Next steps Conclusion
Success metrics
Short term Medium term Long term
Short term
Increased customer satisfaction SOCITM website satisfaction survey
Short term
Increased customer satisfaction SOCITM website satisfaction survey
Medium term
Increased ROT management
Medium term
Increased ROT management
Long term
Increased take up Community involvement
Long term
Increased take up Community involvement
Learn
Feedback
Very difficult to see blue links on blue text
make sure that every area is included. its not the first time that BOLSOVER council has missed off info about bolsover and promoted other areas.
the use of pale blue writing is NOT GOOD it is hard to distinguish from the fade across background please use NAVY BLUE this would increase contrast and improve visibility.there is lots of unused space on the left why not have a wider panel this would allow for the multi-colour selections to be in a larger font yet still occupy only one line. The compliments and complaints form was not easy to find I had no result for compliment when i did a search!!! don't you want good feedback? make a compliments line as a choice on the left!
AIM to be better
Analyse Analytics continued
Identify What’s still not right?
Modify Redevelopment
Analytics continued
In-page analytics
Analytics continued
In-page analytics
Improve
Tasks
Transactions
Improve
Information
Improve
Associations
Modify
Get the results
very good on the whole.
"great to see that you are looking at further improvements and customer satisfaction. keep up the good work!“
So much better than before. The layout is clear, easy to use. I find it much easier to get to the information I want now.
The website today
www.bolsover.gov.uk
The website today
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Next steps
Syndication Real time interactivity Subscriptions
Syndication
NHS choices
Syndication
NHS choices
Syndication
NHS choices
Real time interactivity
Street-scene
Subscriptions
E-newsletters
Conclusion
Website development status before 1st March 2010
Conclusion
Website development status post 30th June 2010
Conclusion
The wheels of continual website development rotate...
Better when they are round rather than square!
Suggestions for further reading
Alternatively...
Why not create your own story?
Also by the same author
Development of our Intranet
Making www.bolsover.gov.uk transactional Using CRM self serve functionality (Northgate)
About the author
Fil Thurlow
Web Development Officer
Bolsover District Council
Sherwood Lodge
Bolsover
Derbyshire
S44 6NF
(01246) 24 25 42
www.bolsover.gov.uk
Bolsover’s Story...
Thank you
