moving away from the zonline brochure - digital unite · the online brochure • too much zinward...
TRANSCRIPT
Moving away from the ‘Online Brochure’
5 tips to ensure your website is a valuable business tool
• Achieve two-way engagement for a better user-experience
• Increase transactional functionality
• Animation & Dynamic Design
• Keeping it Accessible
• Content that’s regularly updated
Reinforcing the web as a key resident touchpoint!
The ‘Online Brochure’
• Too much ‘inward thinking’
• No Human Touch: customers want engagement
• Lack of business-orientated features or functionality
• Navigation is unintuitive — users come to do something/find something
out
• No calls to action
• Website content that rarely changes
• Lots of text!
Reinforcing perceptions that its easier to pick up the phone!
The ‘Online Brochure’
Reinforcing the web as a key resident touchpoint!
The online world is an attention economy…
Bringing Digital Inclusion full circle…
• “There’s been a lot of great work to help people get online, but what do we as providers want them to do when they get there?”
• “We didn’t want to just get swept along with the frenzy without a
comprehensive plan for customer access”
• “What does it practically mean? We want to encourage and people to get online and then to transact when they’re there. There are cost efficiencies on both sides.”
1. Achieve two-way engagement
on your website
• Involve users in the design
• Group content to improve your sitemap
• Interactive elements
• Facilitate feedback & collaboration
• Social Media integration
• Personal touch: make it relevant to the local community
Profiling your audience
• Who is using your website?
• E.g. Residents / Prospective Customers / Stakeholders / General public
• Who should be using your website?
• E.g. Residents ranging from: Younger Generation / Housing applicants / Board members / Staff / Stakeholders / Regulatory bodies / General public / Media / Non social-housing customers
• Who will be using the functionality and for what purpose?
• E.g. Residents accessing online services / Community events / Resident Involvement e.g. HomeCall / Jobseekers / Employment and Training / Shared Ownership Application
• Who are the stakeholders?
• E.g. Involved members / Contractors / Management / Partners / Board members/ MPs / Local Authorities / Developers
The key to engagement with tenants and stakeholders
Consultation!
• A Web Partner can help you engage and understand what your audience wants in the context of the web • Dedicated engagement sessions with internal and external stakeholder
groups • Project team and stakeholder group questionnaires constructed using IA
principles • Knowledge of other solutions in your sector, best practice, and latest
technological trends • Understanding of what works well and how audiences prioritize tools and
information
Achieving a user-centric web presence
Wireframe and User Journeys
Wireframe and User Journeys
Via a card sort exercise the Project Team can begin drafting a site map by listing the content required to satisfy the priorities of these key target audiences
Creation of Site-Map Simple Navigation
Shepherds Bush Housing Group Relevant to Local Community
Shepherds Bush Housing Group Illustration
2. ‘Empower your residents with
the ability to transact via the
web…’
2. Empower your residents with the ability
to transact via the web…
• Your website will deliver cost-savings
• Achieve take-up and loyalty
• Empower residents to take control of their personal information
• Consider back-end systems – will require a level of techncal integration
• Extend to other areas
Cost Savings
17
• The explosion of digital communications now offers the
ability to engage communities in debate and discussion
about the changes, challenges and choices they face.
• With the government lauding localism and "big society" —
whilst at the same time set on deep cuts — the role of the
web in providing a cost-effective and measurable channel
of engagement and self-service is being taken increasingly
seriously.
• Peabody has calculated an average per-transaction saving
of £9.44 over face-to-face and £2.64 over telephone.
• ‘Channel Shift’—SOCITM recently stated that one council
spent £5.6m on ‘front office’ customer contact, while a
second, similar, council spends half this, at £2.5m
Integration with payment platforms
Verification of what you have typed into the form
Integration with payment platforms
Make the payment – Once made will take you back to the
website
Paperless Direct-Debits
Paperless Direct-Debits
Paperless Direct-Debits
Datafish Secure Resident’s Portal
Reporting a Repair
So what do your tenants get?
• Empowerment and value for money
• Users have a choice about how, when, and where to access your services
• Reduced overheads by using the web to target and handle enquiries
• Targeted content and services by secure registration
• Involvement and support
• Areas for fully moderated user-generated content
• The exchange of information among peers
• Participation in “many to many” conversations
• Access and diversity
• Online relationships with multiple individuals and communities
• Choice of many methods of interaction
• Another channel to make their voices heard
Secure portals – top tips
• Don’t bury your self-service or portal!
• Be realistic: take a phased approach if necessary
• Think about usability
• Keep it on brand
• Tap into the spirit of the digital champions
• Look for flexibility
• Whilst they’re captive: resident involvement & events
3. Things can finally get a bit
animated!
North Hertfordshire Homes Dynamic design
Flagship Housing Group Animation
4. Keep it accessible…
• Assistive technologies
• Browser environments
• Operating systems
• Mobile platforms
• Connection tools
Testing is the only way to ensure success!
What is WCAG 2.0?
Published by the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI)
• sub-division of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
• Version 1 for 9 years
• Version 2 for 3 years
Single A 25 Success Criteria
Double AA 13 Success Criteria
Triple AAA 23 Success Criteria
31
Not give Bernard meaningful links!
Bernard – aged
28
Registered blind
and uses a screen
reader to read out
the text to him.
• Click here... or More...
• Available in our housing Leaflet
WCAG 2.0 FAILURE Single A 32
Indirect
Not use formatting correctly for Headings!
• Here is an example of using heading
format to emphasise a paragraph.
• Headings should be formatted according to
their hierarchy and text should be
formatted as body text
Garden Birds
We can still expect to see quite a variety in the average urban garden.
Robins These delightful little birds are the most easily recognisable to visit us.
This article is all about the different birds that can be found in the average urban garden.
Robins are the most easily recognisable of the birds to visit us.
WCAG 2.0 FAILURE Single A 33
Indirect
Not consider the older user!
• Ensure that text can be made larger
• Avoid the need to scroll horizontally to
view line endings.
Sylvester
aged 70
Needs a
magnifier to view
the screen.
34
Indirect
Not ensure forms are easy to use!
• Associate labels with text boxes
• Give adequate instructions before
user inputs information
• Warn blind users in advance
whether text box, check box
or radio button
First Name
Last Name
Address
Tel
Please enter
Post Code in
separate box
Post Code
Subscribe to
our newsletter Yes No
Tick all that apply
Mens
Ladies
Kids
Pets
|
35
Indirect
What should we be doing?
• A web accessibility audit is a quick way
to find out if there are any concerns. Best
carried out BEFORE user testing.
• .GOV web service providers must
achieve Double A or their status could be
removed.
• Very few websites meet Double A
compliance.
36
How important is Mobile Access?
• More mobile phones in the UK than people
• 52% of these are smartphones
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
People Mobiles
In M
illi
on
s
Smartpho…
The Mobile Web: Stats
• “Using my mobile is the
easiest way to research
products, services, or
information.”
—42% of British people
• According to ONS 71% of
16-24 year olds use
mobiles to access internet
vs only 8% over 65
• Men (56%) were more likely
to use the Internet on their
mobile phone than women
(46%)
Gender
Age
Older
Younger
Female
Male
Are mobiles important?
• 25% of people browse
ONLY with a mobile
device
Mobile & Accessibility
• People using mobiles face similar challenges to what
those with disabilities face using a computer
• Small or hard-to-read text, lack of context
• No pointing device or ability to “hover”
• Typing is slow, tedious, error-prone (see:
Autocowrecks, etc.)
• Lower bandwidth means not seeing images, videos,
etc.
• Screen resolution makes it hard to distinguish colours
• Shared accessibility principles—what’s good for
desktops will help on mobile
• Mobile Web Best Practice Guidelines
• http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp
So what are the options?
3 types of mobile solution
• Mobile stylesheet (“Responsive design”)
• Applies a new stylesheet (CSS) to your website, depending on
your browser configurations
• Mobile optimisation
• Uses a different set of HTML templates if you’re viewing the
website on a mobile phone’s browser
• Mobile application
• Recreates your website as a piece of software, which users can
download from an app store onto their phone
Which is the best option…
Mobile stylesheet
• What does it look like?
• Example:
• www.nhh.org.uk
• Advantages:
• Quick to create
• Easy to implement
• Widely used
• Superior user experience
• Google’s preferred mobile
solution (single URL)
5. Current content that’s
regularly updated…
Take ownership and update!
Flexible CMS platform
• Creating a poll to engage users and obtain feedback
• Schedule publish and unpublish
• Set review dates and tasks – workflow
• Layout feature: non-technical changes to front-end
• Flexible design elements: change styling of placements
Questions?
Thank You