Jargon and acronyms should be kept to the absolute minimum, or if they must exist, they should be metatagged with common english counterparts ...more »
Jargon and acronyms should be kept to the absolute minimum, or if they must exist, they should be metatagged with common english counterparts eg. Penalty Charge Notice should be crossindexed with parking fine and parking ticket.
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Use http://getsatisfaction.com to collect problems and suggestions in one place. Then have people employed to answer them, and engage in a conversation ...more »
Use http://getsatisfaction.com to collect problems and suggestions in one place.
Then have people employed to answer them, and engage in a conversation about the most interesting ones.
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Think about your users - organize information in ways that make sense to them, not in ways that match your organizational structure!
The home page should have a list of links that cover the main user tasks, as well as allowing the user to search by keyword, subject area, and ...more »
The home page should have a list of links that cover the main user tasks, as well as allowing the user to search by keyword, subject area, and offer predictive results as they type.
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This should be a no-brainer, but sadly it appears not to be. Yes there will always be problems no matter how much testing is done, but NEVER ...more »
This should be a no-brainer, but sadly it appears not to be. Yes there will always be problems no matter how much testing is done, but NEVER launch a site without ensuring that the majority of links work and that most of the pages contain content.
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A council's website should publish data in open formats which can be resused by external bodies or individuals.
The search engine on the site should be prominent and *work* - ie not produce lists of thousands of PDFs or word documents.
A council website should support users needing grassroots 'community' information and could engage more effectively if it had a companion portal ...more »
A council website should support users needing grassroots 'community' information and could engage more effectively if it had a companion portal (or even better - as part of its main site) for communities, business and residents to participate with; much like the model at - http://www.citysoup.ca
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Ask for testers from the community that will/do use the site. Go out and seek people with different technological and physical capabilites and ...more »
Ask for testers from the community that will/do use the site. Go out and seek people with different technological and physical capabilites and needs and build up a strong and diverse user testing base for invaluable, direct, practical feedback.
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Tell people when a link is going to a PDF and include the size in KB/MB
Services that poke you when something of interest happens and help you sort something out when you are annoyed. Council websites should not be ...more »
Services that poke you when something of interest happens and help you sort something out when you are annoyed. Council websites should not be destinations/portals.
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People who live on ward boundaries will want information on things outside of that area. Geocode everything physical or that relatest to specific ...more »
People who live on ward boundaries will want information on things outside of that area. Geocode everything physical or that relatest to specific physical areas, and then allow for browsing via map and other locative means.
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It needs to be low cost so the council is happy to change things quickly. Big investments lead to sticking with solutions that are possibly ...more »
It needs to be low cost so the council is happy to change things quickly. Big investments lead to sticking with solutions that are possibly outdated or inappropriate, simply because of the money sunk.
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Learn from where your site works well; find out where it doesn't work well and improve it. Make good use of customer feedback and site analytics ...more »
Learn from where your site works well; find out where it doesn't work well and improve it. Make good use of customer feedback and site analytics to identify problems, and customer-focused solutions.
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I know most meetings are considered important by the people in them but rather than just providing PDFs of a meeting it'd be great to be able ...more »
I know most meetings are considered important by the people in them but rather than just providing PDFs of a meeting it'd be great to be able to listen to the cut and thrust of a meeting as it happened.
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Raw data of council meetings, statistics, records all available as Linked Data
When a user encounters an error page they should be able to click a link that automatically sends the necessary information to the webmaster. ...more »
When a user encounters an error page they should be able to click a link that automatically sends the necessary information to the webmaster. They should not have to read a page of instructions on where to find the information and expect them to put it all into an email.
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Incomprehensible URLs that mean nothing on sight are not useful, but http://mycouncil.gov.uk/wards/edgbaston/councillors is self-explanatory, ...more »
Incomprehensible URLs that mean nothing on sight are not useful, but http://mycouncil.gov.uk/wards/edgbaston/councillors is self-explanatory, and good for google.
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All pages on the website should make it easy for the user to vote as to whether it was useful or not, so poor content can easily be identified ...more »
All pages on the website should make it easy for the user to vote as to whether it was useful or not, so poor content can easily be identified by the web team.
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Don't spend £2.8mil on your website - use third party applications and services where possible (Google etc) to add value to your site without ...more »
Don't spend £2.8mil on your website - use third party applications and services where possible (Google etc) to add value to your site without the need for scoping new features into your already bloated CMS.
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There is nothing worse than being pushed to a service that's not technically part of the website and being met with an alien gui. If you're bringing ...more »
There is nothing worse than being pushed to a service that's not technically part of the website and being met with an alien gui. If you're bringing another, developed service in (for example, The Meeting Factory on Lincoln's site - http://tmf.lincoln.gov.uk), skin it up to look like the rest of your site.
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Encourage interactive interesting discussions about particular elements of a proposal - say, a new Local Plan - rather than shoving a large indigestible ...more »
Encourage interactive interesting discussions about particular elements of a proposal - say, a new Local Plan - rather than shoving a large indigestible document out there and allowing the usual suspects to fire back a single (usually predictable) "response".
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Although the user has been championed elsehwere, I think taking a holistic, iterative user centred approach is key to making a good website (as ...more »
Although the user has been championed elsehwere, I think taking a holistic, iterative user centred approach is key to making a good website (as per the ISO standard 13407). This includes:
1. Defining the audiences and context of use.
2. Researching/defining user needs (using analytics, customer feedback, interviews, surveys, user testing on current site).
3. Designing the user experience based on user needs.
4. Testing the designs/site with users and making improvements.
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Allow local residents to initiate petitions to council on the website.
And RSS. But maybe I'll post that elsewhere.
Social Web