Plans for Better Connected 2012

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Guidelines

Socitm Insight announces important changes in the way in which council websites will be assessed for the Better connected 2012 report.

Plans for Better connected 2012

1. Introduction

This note sets out important changes in the way in which council websites will be assessed for the Better connected 2012 report. These changes reflect the way in which Socitm Insight believes that council websites should be evolving to meet the needs of their existing online customers and encourage more people to shift to the web channel.

The changes embrace the concept of top tasks. The 2012 survey will focus on top tasks and the accessibility assessment by RNIB will change in line with this.

This note provides the information that web managers need about the changes. We are holding an event in London on 15 September to provide more background on the changes and reasons why we have made them. There will also be an opportunity to hear about the practical experiences of those who have already adopted the top tasks concept and to discuss details of the changes in workshops.

2. Context

There is little doubt in the eyes of Better connected that the concept of top tasks should drive the design of council websites. We explained the concept first in Better connected 2010, we first tested our well councils have applied the concept in Better connected 2011 and now we plan some radical changes for Better connected 2012.

The principles that we are now following are:

• The design of the website should be focused on top tasks.
• No longer should organisations aim for the most comprehensive website possible. Less is better!

We have decided for the first time in fourteen years to announce the survey topics in advance, because it is important that councils implement top tasks as quickly as possible in order to achieve the financial savings from a programme of channel shift.

3. Changes for Better connected 2012

3.1 The customer journey

Firstly, instead of focusing on information topics and other themes, we are now going to focus on the customer journeys for likely top tasks for your website. In doing this, for each task we will focus on

• Ease of finding task (eg arrival from Google, use of internal search, use of A to Z, use of information architecture and use of landing pages)
• Ease of completing task (step-by-step customer journey to completion promotion of online option, assessment of supporting information )

We will also retain some topics such as the use of internal search, A to Z and location.

We are re-designing our survey completely around this concept because we think that it is the right way to assess the development of council websites, and because we want to encourage all councils to design their website around the concept.

3.2 Top tasks

We have selected the following short-list of tasks for a pilot being carried out in September.

Task 1 Apply for a council job (ALL)
Task 2 Comment on a planning application (ALL)
Task 3 Find winter gritting routes (ALL except DCs)
Task 4 Find rubbish collection day (ALL except CCs)
Task 5 Pay a parking fine (ALL)
Task 6 Pay council tax (ALL except CCs)
Task 7 Renew a library book (ALL except DCs)
Task 8 Find out about getting help at home (ALL except DCs)
Task 9 Find out school term dates (ALL except DCs)
Task 10 Find opening times for local swimming pool (ALL except CCs)
Task 11 Find records office opening hours (CC only)

We expect to reduce the final list (by perhaps two or three) for the final survey to be carried out between 31 October and 11 December.

Please note that this list differs for councils in Northern Ireland (see Appendix 1).

In two-tier areas of England, four tasks do not apply to district councils and three do not apply to counties. Task 11 applies only to counties as an equivalent to Task 10 which does not apply to them.

3.3 Evidence for this choice

The Website take-up service provides the information for selecting top tasks. This survey is used by 140 councils and provided in 2010 an average of 26,000 responses (over 314,000 for the year). It contains this question:

Q3 What was the main service area that you were interested in today?

The first stage of task selection comes from choosing topics of enquiry that attract the highest percentages of web visits. In 2010 the answers were as set out in this table.

1	Job vacancies	9.43
2	Rubbish collection	8.25
3	Schools/youth	8.21
4	Libraries	7.86
5	Leisure facilities	6.44
6	Planning	4.92
7	Housing	4.29
8	Council tax	4.23
9	Family history	4.10
10	Events information	3.65
11	Social care and health	2.88
12	Highways	2.73
13	Parking	2.73
14	Bus information	2.60
15	Adult/further education	2.07
16	Environmental health	1.62
17	Council business	1.59
18	Electoral register	1.47
19	Building control	0.80
20	Licensing	0.54
21	Trading standards	0.54
22	Other	19.04
Total		100.00

Tasks are then selected from within the most popular topics. Some of these are self-evident; others are less obvious. The table below describes how we came to this selection.

	Service area	Selected task	Rationale
1	Job vacancies	Apply for job	In terms of visits, the top task is viewing job opportunities, but there is little point in having the capability of viewing, unless you go on to provide a facility for applying. This is the core task for anyone looking for jobs and the core task the council wants people to complete online
2	Rubbish collection	Find rubbish collection day	This is a key piece of information about the service
3	Schools/youth	Find out school term dates	This is a key piece of information about the service
4	Libraries	Renew library book	This is a core service for library users
5	Leisure facilities	Find opening times for local swimming pool Find records office opening hours	This is much more difficult as leisure services are quite wide and in many cases are mainly outsourced. We selected similar basic information requests for services that cover all tiers of council.
6	Planning	Comment on planning application	In terms of visits, the top task is viewing applications, but there is little point in having the capability of viewing unless you go on to provide a facility for commenting. The customer journey for this extra step throws up interesting extra challenges.
7	Housing	No task selected	This is difficult for a national survey as housing often transferred to RSLs.
8	Council tax	Pay council tax	This is a core task.
9	Family history	No task selected	Again, this covers wide range of services.
10	Events information	No task selected	This is difficult because there are many types of events and not easy to find common task that would work for all councils.
11	Social care and health	Find out about getting help at home	This is a key piece of information about a service which is likely to grow gradually in demand.
12	Highways	Find winter gritting routes	This is a key piece of information about the service.
13	Parking	Pay parking fine	This is a core task

.

3.4 Informational or transactional tasks?

Some might comment that six of the eleven tasks are purely informational. That reflects the high proportion of visits to council websites that are purely informational, as answers to Q4 of the Website take-up service shows:

Q4 What was your main purpose for coming to the website today?

Find information	57.08
Just browsing	10.54
Make an application	5.53
Request a service	3.89
Make a payment	3.89
Report a problem	3.47
Make a booking	1.31
Other	14.30
	100.00

In the case of transactional tasks we will not be able to go the whole way and pay a parking fine or apply for a job, but will only stop when we can go no further.

3.5 Implications of this list of top tasks

For the purpose of Better connected we have selected a list of tasks, based on sound data, likely to appear at the top of most, but probably not all, council websites across the UK. For example, paying parking fines might not apply in rural areas where parking is not heavily controlled. Top tasks may also vary seasonally, with eg schools applications featuring high on the list in the autumn.

Our list should, therefore, not be interpreted in any way as a recommended list of top tasks for every council. Each council should work out for itself what its own set of top tasks might be, taking into account both local and seasonal factors, and design its site around those tasks.

4. Impact of new survey

Inevitably the different way in which we assess websites is very likely to have an impact on the overall rating. We will use the star ranking system, but some of the criteria will change. There will be much stronger emphasis on achieving a successful customer journey. This might mean that sites that would have been rated three or four star, had we remained with last year's methodology will not now have that rating. It is also possible that some sites not well rated last year will receive a boost this year, because they have focused on the basics of top tasks without perhaps being so effective on the 'all-round' competence that our traditional approach encouraged.

5. Accessibility

We are also changing the way in which accessibility of websites is assessed.

Rather than trying to assess the accessibility of the total website, we will focus on accessibility of pages related to top tasks. We will also base the assessment for the first time on WCAG2.0. This work will take place between 31 October and 18 December (a week longer than the main survey)

In agreement with Socitm, RNIB will move away from conformance testing to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 and use a new task- oriented approach, more in line with the rest of the report. RNIB will use WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the standard reference, but not provide a checklist with pass and fails as done before with WCAG 1.0 conformance assessment.

Each website will be tested using a selection of three tasks and evaluating the level of accessibility of a selected list of design and coding best practices:

1. Unique and informative page titles
2. Good heading structure
3. Present and functioning skip links
4. All important content reachable by keyboard navigation
5. Visible focus indicators on links and form elements
6. Clear labels and instructions for forms
7. Meaningful links in context
8. Appropriate text alternatives for images
9. Sufficient colour contrast
10. Flexible font sizes
11. Avoidance of movement on pages
12. No auto-starting for audio or video with sound
13. No flashing content

The three tasks selected for accessibility assessment are

Task 1 Apply for a council job (ALL)

Task 6 Pay council tax (ALL except CCs)

OR Task 7 Renew a library book (CCs only)

Task 8 Find out about getting help at home (ALL except DCs)

OR Task 4 Find rubbish collection day (DCs only)

Appendix 1 describes the variations for district councils in Northern Ireland

For each website RNIB will provide an overview of the general level of accessibility of the website, based on the ease and outcome of performing the three tasks and on the inspection of a random selection of top level pages, in relation to the above criteria.

A 0 to 3 rating reflecting the overall level of accessibility of each website will also be provided as in previous years.

Finally, as for other aspects of websites task-based improvements should be seen as a learning curve and starting point for councils that want to make their websites fully accessible.

6. Other parts of the survey

The survey is not dedicated entirely to top tasks. We will be assessing other usability criteria in the standard way (ie by using specific questions from the survey plus an overall rating (0 to 3):

• Navigation
• Use of search engine
• Use of A to Z list
• Use of location

Finally, there will be a section as in earlier years designed to test democratic engagement (eg consultations).

7. Better connected 2012: Top tasks special

Our event on 15 September in central London gives you further opportunity to discuss this new approach

Gerry McGovern, the originator of top tasks, will provide the keynote presentation with an explanation of why the top tasks approach is critical to implement.

We will then have two case study presentations from councils. One has already implemented top tasks and the other is in the process of doing so.

We will then have three workshops, each led by a different Better connected reviewer. Each will focus on the customer journey for a different top task

Task 2 Comment on a planning application (ALL)

Task 6 Pay council tax (ALL except CCs)

Task 7 Renew a library book (ALL except DCs)

A fourth workshop will be on accessibility and led by an expert RNIB reviewer

Further information:

• Better connected 2010
  Section 7.2 Current practice in managing web tasks
  Section 8.3 Measuring the success of web tasks
• Better connected 2011
  Section 3.7 Readability of top tasks
  Section 6.3 Be obsessed with top tasks
• Customer access improvement briefing; results and summary for 2010 (Issue 5)
• The Stranger's Long Neck ; How to deliver what your customers really want online (Gerry McGovern, published by A & C Black, 2010)
• New thinking - Gerry McGovern's weekly free newsletter (www.gerrymcgovern.com)

Martin Greenwood
Editor of Better connected
24 August 2011

Appendix 1 Top tasks for councils in Northern Ireland

The tasks that we will apply for councils in Northern Ireland vary from the rest of the UK. They comprise:

Task 1 * Apply for a council job
Task 2 * Find rubbish collection day
Task 3 * Find opening times for local swimming pool
Task 4 * Apply for a dog licence
Task 5 * Find how to register a death
Task 6 * Register a new food business

All these tasks will form part of the final survey.

RNIB will assess the accessibility of tasks 1 2 and 4.

Council functions in Northern Ireland are much more limited than in the rest of the UK (eg education, social care and libraries are all operated across the province by single function bodies.) In the case of dog licences, however, councils carry out a task that other UK local authorities do not.

Moreover, we do not have access to the same level of management information about usage of council websites in Northern Ireland that we have elsewhere via the Website take-up service. The evidence base for our selection above is weaker as a result.

The rest of the survey will be exactly the same as for all other councils.

Last modified: 26th August 2011