Did I tell you that I have responsibility for some of the Government policy towards web sites? I’m having a lot of discussions about them at the moment but in the spirit of not throwing stones at other people’s greenhouses, can you help me with something else?
Will you take a look at the Cabinet Office web site and tell me what you think? How easy is it to navigate? Is it interesting? How can it be improved?
22 comments ↓
Hi Tom…it’s great that you’re asking users of your own site – how about also asking users of the Cabinet office site itself? If you want to do it a more structured way, check out companies like http://www.virtualsurveys.com/ who can set up a feedback community of users to help you rebuild the site from ground up.
The existing site is far too cluttered and static so – plese – start again! Some initial thoughts from me:
- Usability and functionality ahead of design every time
- Keep it uncluttered and simple, esp. home page.(I think the NAO said the average Govt site had 17,000 pages!)
- Controversially, I think you should consider basing it on a blogging platform (eg wordpress.) This will give you greater flexibility and the you can add on as many sexy plug ins as you like.
- Dynamic News should be at the heart of the site, contextualised with video or audio content etc as much as possible
- Provide ability for comments and rating of stories as much as you dare
- RSS/Atom feeds of everything and get as much of your content ‘out there’ as you possibly can
- Give it a personality if you can – around Ministers if possible.
- Use accessible language…the Cabinet Office site needs to be about ‘how the process of Govt. works’ in plain speak.
- Develop a portfolio of tools and widgets that work for you – you don’t need to be innovating all the time but continually try to iterate and imitate what works. I’d love to see more video, blogging and deliberative stuff on there.
Good luck!
Mark
- At the top of the page it should say what the cabinet office is, and why i’d want to use the website. e.g. “The Cabinet Office exists to make government work better. On this site, you can X,YZ”
- Use the homepage to summerise what is on the rest of the site e.g. latest publication, latest news, small biog / image of who heads it up
- Add a search hint under the search box “e.g. Funding, or East Midlands”
- Bigger search box
- Email alerts i.e. make me come to the site when there is something relivent to me
- When referring to people, e.g. Ed Milliband, link to something about them, e.g. their official page (or theyworkforyou profile
). Same goes for mentions of other government departments.
- Make menu items better reflecxt what they are linking to e.g. “Social Exclusion” should be “Social Exclusion Task Force”
I have the website on my desktop as I do read it from time to time. I have just read the latest strategy document – excellent.
The site is OK. It is perhaps a bit dull and could be livened up by using more colour! I do prefer other government sites – The Home Office is attractive and perhaps easier to move around.
Hope this helps – at least you are getting the Department noticed!!
It seems to have quit alot of text which makes it look a bit unfriendly, I think. The DWP and Health websites appear more ‘user friendly’ with graphics on the front page etc.
It might be useful if the sidebar displayed what can be found under each heading – social exclusion, third sector etc
Go look at the swedish or norwegian gov depts sites. Find via http://www.sweden.se etc. Clean crisp design that feels energetic. Also invest in a folksonomy of topics for the Cabof site. It is currently highly organisational- centric. What the hec is the difference between ‘civil service reform’ and ‘public sector’ reform – it’s all reform.
1. There are some minor compatibility issues with Firefox
2. Breadcrumb trails are good, but some aspects of article location and categorisation should be included in Page Titles. Take this release, for example:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2008/080121_local_hero.aspx
See the Page Title? Headline only – no context:
‘Do you have a local hero?’
It should be something like:
‘Cabinet Office (UK) – News Releases 2008: Do you have a local hero?’
Not everyone who visits the site is going to start at the front page. You have to spare a thought for those who might start their visit via a search result.
Only two minor items, but I hope they’re useful.
(BTW – I like the rollover glossary text.)
[...] I must admit that it’s with considerable personal interest that I note that Tom Watson has been given responsibility in his new Cabinet Office job for ‘some of the Government policy towards websites’ – meaning its own web presence and not everyone elses. Did I tell you that I have responsibility for some of the Government policy towards web sites? I’m having a lot of discussions about them at the moment but in the spirit of not throwing stones at other people’s greenhouses, can you help me with something else? [...]
We have a local hero in Queenie Slater. Perhaps you would pass on her details to Gordon and in your new role please do not close down my blog site. The cabinet office site I thought was pretty good.
Tom,
The Cabinet Office site, like lots of government sites, has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. The user interface is better, and the content is easier to find. A few quick thoughts on a few possible tweaks:
1. User responsiveness: Who visits the site, what do they want, and how do they tend to find it? How many come straight from an external search engine? (if lots then this might make optimisation the most effective way to help people) How many use the search facility on the site vs. navigating to the information using the links? Where are the ‘hotspots’ on the site and is the front page updated regularly to reflect these? How do you know if the site is a success? Officials may have done loads of research on this already, but if you need more data, one quick and low cost method might be to make the ‘website feedback’ option a stronger prompt on the front page – perhaps something along the lines of “Can’t find what you want? Tell us so that we can improve this site.”
The site seems to be organised more by staff-units and less by categories of information or interaction. The current set-up might work fine, provided that’s the way most visitors also think (rather just being the default organisational response of the various cabinet office units). But if visitors are mainly interested in interactions – e.g. making an FOI request, it isn’t immediately obvious how one should do this, or what happens when one does (‘The further information’ link is broken on this page: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/foi.aspx)
2. Browser compatibility: some browsers may change the appearance a bit – e.g. Firefox mangles the front page so there is a big white space in the middle.
3. Navigation: I couldn’t get the keyboard short cuts (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/viewing_advice.aspx) to work in IE or Firefox, but I may be doing something wrong. Also, the news in the main panel is at least partially duplicated in the Latest News panel on the right. There is so much good content buried in the site, you hardly need to take up screen space with duplicates. Finally, in some places it’s a bit hard to know whether you’ve left the cabinet office site or not – e.g. on the office of the third sector page (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector.aspx), it’s quite hard to get back to the cabinet office home page, even though it’s all nominally part of the same site.
4. Syndication: for the regularly updated parts of the site, it would be really helpful to provide a customisable RSS/XML feed that other sites (e.g. http://www.thegovernmentsays.com) and RSS readers can use. E.g. how can I find out with the minimum of hassle (i.e. without visiting the site) that the social exclusion unit has just released a report that I might be interested in?
–Richard
Hi Tom
As you have responsibility for web sites, I wondered if you have found http://www.thelabourparty.org.uk , which is an appalling, racist, grotesque parody of the Labour Party and its policies.
Whilst I am aware that freedom of speech is fundamental to our democracy, and the party itself, I am surprised that you have allowed this disgusting site to continue. Surely it must be possible to arrest the perpetrators and close it down. If not, surely there must be some form of ‘extra judicial’ action you can take?
The Cabinet Office site is very well designed and informative, by the way.
Even I could find my way round it! I looked up things I was interested in, they were easy to read. You’ll need someone better versed on this kind of thing to suggest improvements. Linda
Not very good. I think it needs toking to pieces and putting back together again, in some sort of logical tree, with and index of pages or a site map.
Strategy Unit bit is great, though; excellent content.
I spend ages poking around on all this for work.
At the moment it seems to have crashed.
Tom, does modesty prevent you from linking to a dedicated page on your good self from the list of cabinet office ministers?
Hi Tom, I am a little stunned. Is this what a minister does, worry about websites that so few people read?
I like it. It’s well laid out and easy on the eye. No doubt someone will say it’s not web2y enough. I’m not sure I’d want a government site to behave like facebook but maybe there are things to learn. For what it’s worth ….
1) The items on the menu on the left seem a bit random – more structure perhaps?
2) I’m not sure what the publishing engine is but I dislike too much scrolling on a home page.
3) Compare with the BBC news home page.
4) Looks like a broken link at the bottom of the page …
“[External Website]”
5) Is is fully W3C WCAG compliant?
6) Aren’t you supposed to do it in Welsh as well? :0)….
Blue on white a night mare for people who have reading problems like dyslexia, it has no method of altering the Colour, and in fact does not meet the code laid down by the DDA for disabled, it has no methods of altering colour or size.
the DRC before it was removed stated most government sites including this one did not meet any of the criteria
Thanks all for your, in most cases, helpful comments. I’m going to get the IT people to take a look at what you said and report back in a week or two.
Tom
Why do you keep calling them IT people, sounds a bit condescending? Are you just making this up as you go along or is this driven off a strategy? You seem to be giving the impression that regardless of business need, anyone who says do x or y, you will ask the “IT” people. Shouldn’t you be finding what Citizens want who don’t read your blog? How about involving the business people, if government has such a beast, to determine what the overall needs are and determine what value the changes will deliver?
Any thoughts on the Observer diary story that Dept of Health officials have made an average of 2 changes a day to Wikipedia entries?
The only point where I’d deviate from Mark Flanagan’s excellent list of points is that it shouldn’t be ‘controversial’ to adopt a blogging platform to rebuild the new site from scratch.
I’ve just done precisely that on behalf of the Wales Office, moving their entire (appalling) website into a new design, managed by the same WordPress technology which powers this site.
Does that make it a ‘blog’? Only if you want it to. It gave the Wales Office an attractive site they could manage with no IT involvement; excellent search optimisation; RSS syndication (with multiple feeds); and bilingual operation. It all took a few weeks and cost a fraction of what you might expect. The trained eye will spot its use of blogging methods; most won’t.
Already it’s encouraging them to do some distinctly non-government-style things: adding photos to their press notices, for example. Not rocket science, but it makes the site much more friendly to browse.
The only way to make government work better is to try doing things differently once in a while. I’ve always felt the Cabinet Office should be giving more of a lead on Whitehall innovation. Here’s your chance.
[...] Local MP Tom Watson is looking for what to do with his new ministerial interest in web strategy. I’m sure you’ve already had this conversation Tom, but in the spirit of the social web please say that you agree with Mr Cameron and do what you can to get those standards in place and used. By the way – yesterday MySociety launched GroupsNearYou. I did a tiny bit of testing (adding data and telling them what I thought) in the development stage. Please go on there and add details of groups near you, the sooner we do that the sooner we can stop more public money being wasted on more online databases of well – groups near you. [...]
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