It’s not finished, there are bits missing, the A-Z and search are still to be finely tuned…..but we want to hear your feedback while we still have time to improve things before launch.

Please have a good look around and leave your comments below – thanks.

The website is now in the testing stage.  Content is still being added and quality checked, and development will continue right up until launch. The website is by no means finished at this stage.  When you look at the beta site, there are areas on the home page and the sub pages which look unfinished because they are unfinished.  Similarly with content, if you cannot find web pages or you have issues with them, these are being worked on. We will be asking all internal publishers to check all of their content on the new website at a later date, when we are satisfied that we have completed the migration.

So why are we asking you to test an unfinished website?

Because you’ll understand that it’s much more effective to ask you to give feedback on an unfinished product, while there is still time to change it, than presenting the finished product and expecting you to accept it.

This is your chance to tell us what you think – whether it’s easy to use, whether you can find things quickly and easily, and your feedback on the new features and functionality.

I’ll be posting the link to the test site here soon.  Don’t worry – it’s not another survey – you might actually enjoy this!

Please add a comment below if you want to publicly voice your opinion on the beta website.

We’ll be undertaking an extensive consultation/testing plan for phase 3 consultation.  The first step in this is to hold three focus groups to monitor usability.

These focus groups will happen on the following dates:

Tuesday 28 September 18.30 – 20.00

Wednesday 29 September 18.30 – 20.00

Thursday 30 September 18.30 – 20.00

We’re looking for residents, local business people and young people as our three starter groups (we know from research that these constitute our main three website audience groups).

Can you help?  If so drop a line to rachel.curtis@medway.gov.uk telling me which group you fall into and your contact details.

All results will be posted here soon after the sessions.

Then came the objectives, the creativity and vision – the where do we want to be?

A detailed project plan followed with lengthy requirements specs and planning – the how are we going to get there?

Well, we’re getting there and launch date is fast approaching, so it is now vital to start thinking about evaluation – or in other terms - how will we know if we’ve got there?

There are two main strands to this.  Firstly, the website needs to work.  It needs to work across multiple browsers and operating systems, the search needs to talk to the content we put in, the navigation needs to expand and contract as we want it to, the twitter feed needs to stream onto the live site, the css and xhtml needs to be coded precisely so that it is validated and passes all accessibility tests.

All of that will be carried out by the development team – as part of the communications team, that is not my area. What I need to do is check that you, the users, are happy with the site.  It may work fine technically, but if it doesn’t work in the way you want it to, that’s no good and we definitely haven’t got there yet.

We already know what you think about the design, the layout, the new functionality from all the comments and feedback you gave us in consultation phases 1 and 2.  Next, we need to ask you about what we call the user journey.  How you get from A to B, whether C is where you think it should be – whether the structure of information makes sense to you and enriches your experience.

We’re going to do this through a number of focus groups, public consultation and lab-based tests.  I’m planning this in now and will post again soon.  If you’re interested in taking part in one of the focus groups, sign up below or drop an email to rachel.curtis@medway.gov.uk

Old scenario:

• Go to website,
• go to Learning (to find out about your nearest Sure Start centre),
• go to Leisure (to find out about where your local library is for baby bounce class timetable),
• go to Environment (to find out about where to get rid of all that packing and boxes from the pram, cot, wrapping paper),
• go to Community (to find out where to register your baby’s birth)…

Hardly seamless, is it?

New scenario:

• Go to website
• Select ‘find my nearest’ and type in your postcode
• Select the services you want to find – tick the boxes ‘Sure Start centres, libraries, environment, register offices)

On one page, marked clearly on one map, will be all the info you need.  Click on a marker and information will pop up about opening times, contacts, website link.

For people requiring multiple services in Medway, we hope it will make your lives a lot easier.  And for people who like a visual portrayal rather than a text address, we hope you’ll like it too.

What do you want to be able to find?

We’re busy making sure all the information is in there and so far have Adult learning centres, Allotments, Car parks, Cemetaries, Citizens Advice Bureau, Contact Points, Golf courses, Halls for hire, Household waste & recycling centre, Leisure centres, Library, Medway Council, Medway heritage, Museum, Nursery, Parks and open spaces, Police Stations, Primary school, Public toilets, Railway stations, Recycling point, Register Office, Secondary school, Sports facilities, Surestart centres, Swimming pools, Theatres, Youth Centres…..

We’ve also subscribed to a feed which allows us to import NHS data – giving you mapped locations of hospitals, GP surgeries, dentists etc.

What else do you want to see in there?  Add a comment below and tell us how we can use location-based information to enhance your use of the council website.

Xhtml coding, app building, plug-in design and testing, user acceptance testing, tcm importing…it’s all been happening.

Excellent…but what does that mean?

It means very simply that the developers have taken our designs and requirements and are translating them into a fully functioning website which behaves the way we want it to.  I’ll be posting the first release soon for consultation.

An early success is the services database, which to you or me will be the ‘find my nearest’ function on the website.  I’ll be posting separately on this, but it’s all working well so far.

Content is ready to be migrated and the team are staring work on Monday to migrate the 3,000+ pages on the current site to the new site.  Each page has been checked so we’re certain it’s relevant and accurate.

I’m now thinking about phase 3 of the consultation – take a look at what we’ve got planned and if you have got any ideas to add, please leave a comment.

The most important thing to highlight is that there has been a huge amount of work going on in the background recently, and that we’ll release this soon to see if it matched your expectations.  The project is still on track and on budget.

Phase one is complete, phase two is nearing completion and phase three will happen once the website is built and ready for usability and accessibility testing.

To find out what we asked, what you said and what we did as a result, download the full consultation report.

Appendices and supporting documents:

Appendix 1 – Diversity Impact Assessment

Appendix 2 – Public survey responses

Appendix 3 – Schools survey responses

Appendix 4 – Staff website survey

Appendix 5 – Medway site map

Appendix 6 – Medway navigation

Appendix 7 – Socitm results

Appendix 8 – Phase one statistics and insight

Appendix 9 – Wire frames heat map

Appendix 10 – Wire frames confetti view

Appendix 11 - Wire frames confetti view time to click

Appendix 12 – Wire frames element list

Appendix 13  - Wire frames confetti view open width

Appendix 14 – Wire frames confetti view day of week

Appendix 15 – Wire frames confetti view country

Appendix 16 – Wire frames confetti view browser

Appendix 17 – Wire frames confetti view operating system

Appendix 18 – Consultation approach

Appendix 19 – Feedback:

• Qualitative – Wire frame results – Blog comments – Wire frame comments – Design feedback
• Quantitative – Overview – Click tracking – Staff feedback

Thanks again for all of your feedback so far.

The day focused on you, the users.  How can we make it easier for you to find information and carry out tasks online?  A major theme of the day was ‘top tasks’ – bringing the most popular tasks to the forefront and allowing you to complete a task in the quickest and easiest way. This has been our main aim throughout the website project as we know that many of you visit the website to ‘do’ and not to browse. Take a look at the wire frame and design to see how we’re planning to structure top tasks in the most user-friendly way.

Another hot topic under scrutiny was the words we choose to signpost people to services or areas of the site.  Do the terms ‘do it online’ or ‘quick links’ actually help?  Maybe they do and allow you to navigate quickly and easily.  Or maybe they frustrate you – ‘do it online’?  Well, of course, you are online.  And as for ‘quick links’ – every link should be quick so isn’t it a waste of valuable home page space?  We’d be interested to hear what you think.

I heard from several councils on how they have turned around their websites. The common theme was that they all ask themselves an important question at every decision-making stage – does this add value for our website users? Only by stepping back from the project, putting yourself in the shoes of the user and asking the user, can you ensure that every decision you make is going to lead to a customer-centric, useful, usable and used website.

The most important message of the day is that re-developing a council website is not an isolated task.  Once we launch in November, we will continue our web improvement programme.  We’ll continue to analyse traffic, keywords and user satisfaction to improve further.   Some of you may like certain features but find others difficult to use – and if so, please tell us about it.  There will be a feedback and rating option on every page so please use it!

As part of a move to encourage sharing among Medway residents, we’re asking you to help kick start our Flickr community.  You’ll see on the home page design that there’s a Flickr image feed at the bottom of the page – we’re planning on using this to showcase the best of Medway.

We’re looking for your images – anything from Medway landscapes to events you have attended in Medway to everyday walks to work.  The idea is to share pictures, share ideas of things to do, places to see and provide inspiration to Medway residents and tourists alike.

If you have any images that you would be happy to share on the website, please send them to rachel.curtis@medway.gov.uk.  We’re working over the summer on building up our image directory, then we’ll launch the official Flickr community in the autumn.  There is still plenty of time to contribute so if there’s a budding photographer in you, why not take advantage of the sunshine this weekend to get started?

This could be, for example, where to register at your local GP clinic, how to contact your dentist or how to get to your nearest hospital.

NHS choices can allow us to feed data straight onto the new website, giving information to all the above and more.

So, as an example, if you go to the ‘Find my nearest’ section of the website, you will be able to see, quickly and easily, on a map, where GP surgeries are in relation to your post code.

We’re interested to hear what you think.  Would this be useful in providing an all-round view of your area?  Or should a council website stick to council matters only?