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