Rethinking London.gov.uk - putting Londoners first

Imogen Levy, Digital Delivery Manager explains the story so far.

Work-in-progress designs for the homepage in desktop, tablet and mobile view

How it all began

Back in the summer of 2014 a key piece of consumer research was commissioned by City Hall. The ultimate goal of this research was to gain greater understanding of the visitors to the website. Focus of the research centered around the motivations people had for visiting the website, frequency of use, ease of use, rating of various aspects, overall satisfaction, understanding of the Mayor and London Assembly and potential future use.

The research helped to unearth some key challenges for City Hall:

1. That Londoners care strongly about their area
2. That awareness and understanding of City Hall is low
3. That broader understanding of London’s governance is a mystery

But out of these challenges came some great opportunities for the City Hall:

1. That people are passionate about London
2. That people have resonance with some of the Mayor’s/City Hall's work
3. That people have an appetite to know and engage more

Learning about the types of people that visit the City Hall website and their motivations for doing so has not only helped to identify the needs and expectation of users it has also helped to define a set of ‘personas’ that have become central when testing the website as it develops. (I will expand on testing in a future blog post.)

The story so far

The website redevelopment project is well underway now. In fact, we are getting close to launching a public beta site where we will be inviting thoughts and feedback on the project so far. Watch this space.

The new website is intended to be:

1. the first place to go for information about London government
2. a modern, open and engaging site that listens to people’s concerns

and help:

• Londoners to get involved and improve their city
• Professionals to connect, share ideas and learn from each other

What’s next?

Over the next few months we will be regularly blogging as the project develops on a range of different subjects including; user research, show and tells, using agile processes, content repurposing and migration as well as technical testing and announcements of when our public beta site goes live and how to feedback your thoughts and comments.

We look forward to sharing this with you!