James Steele from Nottingham City Council gave this presentation at our Really Useful Day: Improving User Journeys, 20 September 2013, in Nottingham. The presentation was about how Nottingham City Council made improvements to its website.

1. Nottingham’s
Website Review
James Steele

2. Background
• Nottingham City Council Web Team established in
January 2000 in Customer Services
• New website was launched in June 2000
• In 2004 the team moved to Communications where we
introduced LiveLink CMS
• In 2008 we moved to GOSS ICM and launched a new
site
• In Sept 2012 we moved again to IT Services and
launched a new site in July 2013 – First phase of a
wider channel development programme

3. Nottingham’s Website Review
2000 and 2004

4. Nottingham’s Website Review
2008 and 2013

5. Nottingham’s Website Review
Where we were
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5000 pages on corporate site
30% of access to the site from a mobile
Customer feedback
• 55 % good – ‘Excellent information on the page, which
meant I could get a collection arranged speedily’
• 37% bad – ‘Very frustrating busy web page’
2000 pages not reviewed for 12 months +
400 editors trained with only 40 regularly editing content
Unmanaged information causes confusion – old news
appears current
Key messages were the priority

6. Nottingham’s Website Review
Evidence
Searches on Google
Search terms on the website
Analytics
Heat maps
Contact Centre data
Transactional data
Full site audit

7. https://www.crazyegg.com/

8. Nottingham’s Website Review
Management Principles
• No duplication – information held in one part of the site only
• Core services and transactions take precedence
• Seasonal items removed out of season
• Out of date items removed from corporate site
• Content of pages may be changed locally, subject to guidance and
approval but new pages require business case
• Clear corporate branding for all content
• Customers referred elsewhere for general information
• No separate websites for Council services, projects or campaigns,
secondary branding to be used
• Primary web contacts own key sections of the site

9. Nottingham’s Website Review
Consultations and Workshops
Leadership Team
Citizens
Heads of Service
Web authors
Designers
Journey testing
Staff / colleagues

11. Nottingham’s Website Review
Measuring Success
Reduction in calls to contact centre
Improved take up of top tasks
Site feedback
Socitm uptake service

12. Nottingham’s Website Review
Next Steps
Regular reviews:
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Evidence
Top task take up
User journeys
Socitm uptake data
Improvements
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Improve the skills of our web authors
Review mobile site
Review 3rd party sites and applications
Introduce Customer Access Portal
Better Connected 2014