ENABLING CHANNEL
SHIFT FOR LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
DELIVERING AN INTUITIVE
DIGITAL PRESENCE FOR A LARGE
UK COUNCIL, ENCOURAGING
USERS TO SELF-SERVE ONLINE
STRATEGY
As the digital transformation of government continues
to gather pace, councils across the UK are looking to
channel shift to improve user experience and reduce
costs. Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) had digital
objectives centred on enabling and engaging users to
self-serve online. They wanted an online presence that
would be accessible to all its residents, businesses and
visitors.
Working with AVDC, Orange Bus crafted a compelling
strategy to get to the heart of what the people of
Aylesbury Vale (and those visiting the area) needed
from an online service; informing the design and build
of an effective council website.

METHODOLOGY
The project was initiated by internal
workshops with AVDC stakeholders
to uncover insights around their local
residents and businesses. Collaboratively,
we established the competitive strengths
and advantages of the services, identified
common customer goals and clustered
them into distinct persona groups.
Customer workshops - held as activity
days - then gave residents and business
owners the chance to have their
say, allowing our UX team to identify
the highs and lows of a customer’s
experience when interacting with AVDC
and areas of value for the future.
This intelligence paved the way for
user journey mapping, a method used
to ensure that website content and
structure is accessible to all. Information
had to be easy to find and read, relevant
and actionable, with wireframes then
structuring the website creative and
technical delivery.
Adopting AVDC’s branding, our designer
created a new-look council website.
Iconography became incredibly
important in overcoming language
barriers and varying levels of reading
ability. All users had to be able to
navigate the site for key information e.g.
maps, pictures, telephone numbers. This
also aided usability on mobile and tablet
devices by giving a quick and clear form
of navigation.
Into development, the site was built
responsively on open-source CMS
Drupal and quality assured by the
Orange Bus tech team. Collaborative
testing sessions with AVDC staff and
councillors pre-launch took place -
validating our improvements and finding
areas for continuous development.

TRANSFORMATION
Across the board, departments saw
a dramatic reduction in inbound
enquiries - with a decrease of 33%
reported the Recycling and Waste
department alone. Additionally, the
new site (vs. the old site) - in the first
month of launch - has seen a 7% shift
in traffic from desktop to mobile/
tablet, and a 5% increase in the
number of new visitors.
Customers are evidently more able
to self-serve, finding the content
they require on the improved AVDC
website, and have been able to access
key information on-the-go.
aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk
We’re delighted with the end
result and the statistics speak for
themselves - we’ve got more people than
ever before using our site on-the-go, an
increas in new visitors, and visitors are
staying and browsing around more pages
than previously.
Together - with extensive research -
we’ve created an intuitive site which gives
the people of Aylesbury Vale an easier,
clearer and more intuitive journey than
ever before.
Victoria Pratt
Senior Marketing and Communications
Officer, Digital Lead, AVDC.
orangebus @orangebus Orange Bus Ltd Orange Bus
orangebus.co.uk