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![As a user interested in
government activity relating to
[policy/topic/organisation X]
I need to read relevant
ministerial speeches,
So that I know the latest
position and can see what’s
been issued as public record
@neillyneil
GDS](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/govdeliverynov2013-131121022531-phpapp02/85/Gov-delivery-nov_2013-26-320.jpg)
![As a user interested in government
activity relating to
[policy/topic/organisation X],
I need to get emails notifying me
about new or updated content
relevant to my interests,
So that I don’t have to keep checking
the website
@neillyneil
GDS](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/govdeliverynov2013-131121022531-phpapp02/85/Gov-delivery-nov_2013-51-320.jpg)
![As a user interested in
government activity relating to
[policy/topic/organisation X],
I need to get emails notifying
me about new or updated
content relevant to my
interests,
So that I don’t have to keep
checking the website
@neillyneil
GDS](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/govdeliverynov2013-131121022531-phpapp02/85/Gov-delivery-nov_2013-65-320.jpg)
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Gov delivery nov_2013
- 1. GOV.UK, user needsand communicating at scale Neil William Product Manager, GOV.UK Government Digital Service Cabinet Office @neillyneil
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- 3. 1. GOV.UK 2. Userneeds @neillyneil GDS
- 4. 1. GOV.UK 2. Userneeds 3. Communicating at scale @neillyneil GDS
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- 12. 1. GOV.UK 2. Userneeds @neillyneil GDS
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- 15. As a __________________ Ineed to ______________ So that ________________ @neillyneil GDS
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- 20. How government works Whatgovernment is doing How to get involved @neillyneil GDS
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- 24. Departments and policy 70,000published pages 1,000 publishers* 145 new/updated pages per day * and thousands more joining soon @neillyneil GDS
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- 26. As a userinterested in government activity relating to [policy/topic/organisation X] I need to read relevant ministerial speeches, So that I know the latest position and can see what’s been issued as public record @neillyneil GDS
- 27. No such thingas a ‘general page’ on GOV.UK @neillyneil GDS
- 28. 45,000 content items migrated 92,000content items archived @neillyneil GDS
- 29. 1. GOV.UK 2. Userneeds 3. Communicating at scale @neillyneil GDS
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- 33. “What is thegovernment’s policy on Afghanistan?” @neillyneil GDS
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- 51. As a userinterested in government activity relating to [policy/topic/organisation X], I need to get emails notifying me about new or updated content relevant to my interests, So that I don’t have to keep checking the website @neillyneil GDS
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- 53. Interest in a wholetopic @neillyneil GDS
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- 55. Interest in a specific combination offormat, topic and organisation @neillyneil GDS
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- 59. All consultations about bordersand immigration from Home Office @neillyneil GDS
- 60. All consultations about bordersand immigration from Home Office relevant to local authorities @neillyneil GDS
- 61. Country specific travel advice (eg16 alerts sent about Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan) @neillyneil GDS
- 62. 7,415 topic lists 250,000subscribers (>2m subscriptions) 20-30m messages/month 6th top referrer to GOV.UK @neillyneil GDS
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- 64. How do weknow if we’re meeting users’ needs? @neillyneil GDS
- 65. As a userinterested in government activity relating to [policy/topic/organisation X], I need to get emails notifying me about new or updated content relevant to my interests, So that I don’t have to keep checking the website @neillyneil GDS
- 66. (that‘s a governmentneed, not a user need) @neillyneil GDS
- 67. ....it’s just veryannoying @neillyneil GDS
- 68. ...so our aimis to provide a useful service, by helping the people who want email alerts to get Exactly the emails they need and no more @neillyneil GDS
- 69. Future plans: •Measure anditerate •Better designs for email output @neillyneil GDS
- 70. User needs + collaboration +notification = better signal to noise ratio @neillyneil GDS
- 71.
- 72. Neil Williams Product Manager, GOV.UK GovernmentDigital Service @neillyneil
Editor's Notes
- #2 I’m NW, one of a handful of PMs at GDS, CO
- #3 I’m going to talk to you about 3 things 1. GOV.UK
- #4 2. User needs, and how focusing on user needs is essential to build effective web products
- #5 Third, a bit about what it means to have all this content in a single domain and how we help users make sense of that
- #6 I’m going to talk to you about 3 things 1. GOV.UK
- #7 Well I’m guessing based on profile of the people in the room, most of you’ve probably seen it But for the benefit of people in the room who are less familiar, I’m going to start with a video which MB recently took to the Cabinet Not been shown outside GDS before, so this is a bit of an exclusive (Pick your fave cabinet member and pretend to be him or her)
- #8 ... So that’s what your nation’s leaders watched a few Tuesdays ago And by all accounts it went down a storm, with much banging of tables
- #9 Mike went on to talk about the other things GDS is doing Because GOV.UK is a small part of what came out of Martha’s original report, revolution not evolution, in 2010 GOV.UK is about fixing publishing, we’re also fixing transactions Starting with 25 of the 50 most used online services from government
- #10 But GOV.UK is our most obvious and best known output It’s also our most mature product Been live for a year - we just celebrated its first birthday on October 17th
- #11 And it’s won government some prestigious awards, which you may have read about Most notably the Design of the Year award, beating the Shard and Olympic Cauldron
- #12 The Mail kindly wrote this up as “boring.com” But that’s precisely the point - we didn’t win the design award for making something pretty We won it for making something useful
- #13 2. User needs, and how focusing on user needs is essential to build effective web products
- #14 As you heard on the video earlier on, everything we do at GDS starts with needs. These are our design principles, for building digital product. But actually they stand as a set of principles for any product or service. I urge you to go and look at them. Search on gov.uk for design principles.
- #15 And look, top of the list: start with needs. Simply, you can’t make a useful product without knowing what users need. “People come to our sites to accomplish tasks and to fulfil needs, not just to hang out”. Users don’t come to government websites for a giggle and a browse around. Putting things there that you want them to do is naive and a waste of time. We built GOV.UK around needs, and iterate it around meeting those needs.
- #16 This is the standard way we articulate user needs for GOV.UK Using the format of a “user story”. As a - type of person / I need to - perform a task / So that - I can achieve an outcome Applies both to content and software. Really powerful - makes sure everyone is clear who the users is, what they need and why
- #17 And we have a lot of users, with a lot of needs. GOV.UK is the 43rd most visited site by UK web users Behind things like Google and Bing, BBC sites, Amazon, Yahoo, banks
- #18 Which means we’re handling around 6.5m uniques a week (You can see this yourself at the URL)
- #19 Majority of those users are coming to do the same things, week in week out 3,000 mainstream services and information needed by masses of citizens or businesses This is one example, you saw it in the video. We’ve mapped out the individual needs for each of these and we measure our performance based on how well we are meeting those needs
- #20 A smaller proportion of users are coming for information about how government works, and what government is saying and doing, which they’ll find in the departments and policies section. This is the bit of the site I look after, and I suspect the bit that people in this room are most interested in, so I’m going to talk about it in more detail.
- #21 This is the proposition of the D&P section - at a high level, the needs it seeks to meet How central gov works, what it’s doing and how to get involved. It’s a conversation - it’s the place for interaction between state and citizens/stakeholders/users
- #22 As such, fewer users It’s still for everyone from curious citizens through to engaged stakeholders and professionals It’s visited by 1.5m people a week, about 20% of the overall site traffic. It occasionally peaks to more than mainstream, eg HS2 consultation
- #23 And those numbers are climbing, as more organisations move to GOV.UK
- #24 If you change the axis to scale up and show a comparison you can see more clearly services and info remains steady Depts and policy is growing rapidly in line with transition of govt orgs into the site.
- #25 And that traffic is spread over a great many more pages D&P is government’s very very long tail, with 145 updates per day and we’re a third of the way through moving orgs onto it, so this will go up We have a lot of different users, looking at a lot of different things every day for different reasons. Which means there are a lot of user needs.
- #26 So whereas we track individual, specific needs per page for mainstream services and info. In the long tail of content from departments and policy, we articulate the user need in this way. A given person’s need can be thought of as a combination of the subject matter and the format.
- #27 For example, this. A specific interest in a given area of govt work Met by a specific format which delivers a defined outcome - in this case, speeches, but could be publication, stats, consultation
- #28 Firstly we’ve made it impossible to create page after page of nested “general” content. You can only create the things users need from government.
- #29 Using those principles we got rid of more than double the amount of content we brought across in the first wave of moving websites onto GOV.UK, for the 24 ministerial departments.
- #30 Third, a bit about what it means to have all this content in a single domain and how we help users make sense of that
- #31 The two ways we make this work are collaborating around meeting user needs notifications to meet user need
- #32 GOV.UK is helping to drive collaboration across government to produce content in a more user-centric way So while previously you had to check separate domains, now you can look up what’s happening in one place, by organisation
- #33 And you can also look it up by topic - you don’t need to know which orgs first Organisations are collaborating on managing these topic pages, to provide a joined up view of activity across government around each policy area
- #34 And previously, if you wanted to know what the UK government’s policy goals were about a given subject eg Afghanistan
- #45 Now you only have to visit one page Producing this page involved lots of people talking to each other and co-authoring this page
- #46 GDS co-ordinated the production of 223 policies in this way As a consequence, many more people talking to each other now
- #47 And those 1000 publishers are all using a single shared publishing system, built for collaboration and co-authoring to better meet end user needs
- #48 And writing using a consistent tone and language and structure to make sure the user gets and understand what they came for. Go and read it.
- #49 Develop the software collaboratively and openly Anyone can see this backlog Anyone can suggest feature ideas
- #50 And a community, who we communicate with via our blog. Users and publishers. Feedback on our work. Much room for improvement - working with depts and agencies to improve content quality
- #52 Another user need for communications at scale is notification when things change
- #67 ...but it does validate the need for the service
- #68 We want to send less email
- #71 By focusing on user needs, and encouraging content producers to combine their content, we can improve the signal to noise ratio.