Another short week due to a bit of leave (more sort of midweeknotes really) so shameless padding ensues….
A new release of developments landed at various points since last Friday. We’ve slightly lost our rhythm on these, with the landing day stretching a bit, but this overcomes the issue of Placecube rushing to push them and working over weekends.
These are key days for us, with the team circling like a bunch of digital piranhas waiting to launch themselves on the changes and quickly assess how close we are to what we need. By the end of this week we should be close to completing the content-based phase of the development, with work already starting to match some of the other functionality on the site.
We’re also deep into delivery on other aspects of the overall project. Recruiting our user testers is well in hand, with a newsletter and Facebook post reeling in far more interested people than we’d perhaps initially thought.
For my part I’ve been working on a Transition to Live plan, detailing the step-by-step actions needed to put this new site on the map. We’re now much clearer about the content-based activities needed to go live, which are more than we’d like but inevitable given the significant shift in presentation and options available.
We’re still struggling with some basics that underline where Digital Place is as a product in some areas, just at the moment (it’s coming!) But it’s good working with Placecube to define and refine these things as both we and they benefit from the discussion and get a greater chance of influencing things.
The easiest option for Go Live would be for us to roll over our current approach to analytics and cookies, but we know we have to improve ICO compliance with our cookie notice (already well in hand thanks to Placecube) and nature of data collected. Thing is, doing this will result in an impact on our numbers.
I’ve also been banging on for a while about shifting from a purely quantitative approach to performance to using qualitative information from behavioural analytics, like Hotjar. So I’ve been delving a bit deeper into the option lately.
I won’t mention products by name, and while the two main Google Analytics alternatives I’ve been looking at may be based on the same core code their customer approach couldn’t be more different. One (the stupidly expensive option) takes marketing to mean rubbishing their main competitors with an off-putting swagger, and with in-your-face follow-up emails that feel close to stalking.
By contrast, their (more interesting and cheaper) competitor took nearly a week to get back to me but was instantly friendlier/more easy going. The range of privacy options available was…pretty cool!
We’re running a trial of this option in the background to see if it can actually meet our needs but I’m also pressing us to have a Big Talk about what we actually want from analytics and where we sit on the data privacy spectrum. With a further system demo coming up we’ll be getting closer to that point soon I think.
If I’m honest I can’t remember how I came to be on this group; it may have been a desire to add a view about the onboarding experience or a hangover from doing a brief intro to problem statements. But it’s nice to be involved in something other than the main job to stretch the mind a bit and mix with different people.
The topic in hand was mandatory training. Data shows that despite much pushing/reminding that there are worrying numbers of staff that have not yet completed the four mandatory modules on our Learning Hub (confession: I only just completed my remaining two, but my start date meant I had a bit more time).
There was some good conversation around the validity of what is considered mandatory (e.g. does a content designer working remotely and never meeting Dorset people really need to do safeguarding training?) or even sufficient (e.g. does a 30 min health and safety essentials course really meet the needs of a highway worker facing oncoming traffic on a daily basis?). One thought emerging having a tiered approach (corporate, service, team) better matched to individual needs may change the game.
I was kind of pleased we defaulted back to our problem statement and decided to further explore our hypothesis on why people aren’t completing their training before we rush off to implement fixes.
Finding a like-minded person (outside of the team) really floats my boat, so I was delighted to get an email forwarded from a colleague who’d just gone through an EQIA process and decided to look into this web accessibility thing for their microsite, getting as far as running WAVE on it and being concerned about the findings. She was keen to establish next steps and work out how we take this forward as a council.
Aha, says I, let’s talk! I’ve got a microsite audit process up my sleeve that I’ve only had the chance to use once in Dorset so far, so this will be another useful test. With a willing colleague onside it will be great to see this work through to action and improvement.
With the drop of the accessibility regs deadlines on mobile apps there was some conversation on LocalGov Digital Slack around the use of third party mobile apps and compliance. My position has always been that unless we control the app and its development (like a website) it doesn’t fall under the regs, and this was the view of the parking app provider too. Another council had been pressing them to up their game, with some frustration, but apparently my previously simple position may not be shared by GDS who may consider a council liable for any non-compliance.
If councils are pushed into the position of having to ensure all third party apps are fully compliant I can see a storm brewing ahead. It’s the right thing to do in terms of improving accessibility, but is it feasible in terms of procurement, market leverage and capacity to test/ensure compliance?
Meanwhile, in the real world, dealing with the cultural challenges of accessible content continues…
OK, highlight of my week. By a long way.
It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve been stupidly excited about the opportunity to meet my team in person, all together, for the first time this week. We’d plan to make this happen before I started last October, but working patterns and lockdown knocked it on the head until now.
So on a (thankfully) sunny day we gathered in Borough Gardens with a vague idea of having lunch/eating cake and not much more. But it was much more.
There were a number of times I just quietly marvelling at the fact that these wonderful people I know but don’t really know were sat with me, just shooting the breeze. It filled me up inside with joy. Simple as.
And for them it was a chance to see each other again after so long being apart (with the added bonus of Natalie having returned from a long maternity leave). I got to observe relationships in play, which is just something that you can’t replicate online.
Conversation was real; no one put their electronic hand up, all ‘cameras’ were on and everyone (including me apparently) looked slightly different than screen-them. Or as Gillian put it “you’re Neil, but not quite Neil” which was a tad profound but so on the nose.
I even got a bonus tour of South Walks House, where most of the team worked before it closed for lockdown, and then closed permanently. Full of screens that won’t be turned on again, a balcony with vegetable beds that won’t be tended, and self-opening windows that won’t annoy people any more. Sad in a way, and there’s obviously an affection for a place of work that is shared amongst them.
I didn’t want the experience to stop, and I got the feeling everyone valued this chance to feel more connected with each other. So we’re going to do it again; it’s good for the soul.