In 2012, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reviewed users' experience of its guidance. They found it was often out of date, overlapping or unclear about what was required. Businesses reported that guidance was difficult and time-consuming to read and understand. 75% of businesses saw lack of clear information as a barrier to compliance. Scroll's Padma Gillen was hired to lead a content team through a process of defining the needs of users, then designing content to meet those needs. In this presentation Padma will talk through the challenges and lessons learned.

1. PADMA GILLEN & EDWARD LOCKHART-MUMMERY
GOVERNMENT
CONTENT STRATEGY
AND USER NEEDS

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Hello!

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First we’ll tell you the story, then
talk through lessons learned.

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A story about…1
The Smarter Guidance project

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The story starts in 1609
with the Devon and Cornwall
Sea Sand Act

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150 environment acts,
1200 regulations, and
100,000 pages of guidance later…

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No one knows what to do -
and the environment is getting worse.

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Government red tape challenge
trawls through every regulation.

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We suggest designing regulations
around users:
• 1 act instead of 150
• 1 process for transactions not 250
• 1 version of what you have to do

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Ministers decided that sorting
the content was the first most
important thing to do.

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32 documents
6 organisations
340 pages
Batteries waste (before Smarter Guidance)

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For Defra, this led to:
• government costs of £20m to 30m p.a.
• business costs of £200m+ p.a.
• low awareness and understanding of the
rules
• fear and stress for small businesses
• potential businesses deciding not to
bother

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There was a strong business
case for a content strategy
based on user needs.

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We started with 120,000 pages.
We reduced that by 80%.

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We achieved this by designing
content around user needs.

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Smarter Guidance was about
increasing the quality
and reducing the quantity
of Defra guidance.

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Before GOV.UK government content was like this:

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As a…
I want to…
So I can…
A user story articulates a user need
dog owner
get a pet passport
take my dog on holiday

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Use data to validate the user need

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Mapping content to user needs

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Before After
32 documents, 6 organisations,
340 pages.
1 guide for each of the 5 user
groups. Each guide is 5 pages long.

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That was batteries waste. We did the
same thing to 119 other topics.

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Lessons learned2

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It’s easier to manage quality and instil the
(counter)culture if you have a central
content team.
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Make sure your content team can say no.
Get your governance and proposition clear.
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Require a user story, acceptance criteria
and source content before starting work on
an item.
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Have a clear agile workflow
and stick to it.
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From request to icebox
Content designers ask:
• is there a user need?
• how do you know it's a user need? (any data?)
• is it in proposition?
• is it already met on GOV.UK?
• is it already met elsewhere?
• are there clear acceptance criteria?
• is there clear source material to work from? (or an SME who can
explain?)
OK, we'll do something…

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From backlog to done
Ideally this:
• Backlog
• Draft
• 2i
• Fact check
• Fact check amends
• 2i
• Published

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Make sure people know why you’re
messing with ‘their’ stuff.
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Know what you mean by ‘quality’ and know
what your MVP is.
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What does quality mean?
It’s quality content if it meets your needs as a user. That
means:
• you can find it
• you can understand it
• it’s factually accurate
• it’s complete
• it’s consistent with the rest of the site
• you can act on it

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Sharpen the saw.
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You can make specialist content plain
English if you try.
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Talk directly with the lawyers whenever you
hear “the lawyers said it must say
[insert gobbledygook here]”
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BAU will probably take longer to arrive than
you think. Plan for a slow handover.
10

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Thank you!

43. Content design, content strategy and training in all aspects of digital
content delivered at your office or our training suite.
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