{"id":1010,"date":"2022-09-09T09:27:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2022-09-22T12:41:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T11:41:24","slug":"redesigning-our-newsroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2022\/09\/09\/redesigning-our-newsroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Redesigning our Newsroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February I was given the following challenge statement with a view to doing some initial discovery work around our current <\/span>Newsroom<\/span><\/a>, its environment, and how it could link to our <\/span>new customer platform<\/span><\/a> which is currently being developed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo design and develop a new online newsroom, which shares all the council’s news stories, communications, campaign messaging and blog posts <\/span><\/i>to external audiences, including residents and journalists, in an engaging and accessible format, with the aim of ensuring people are well informed about what the council does\u201d.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As part of the customer platform work, we are looking for ways that we can build better online services for our customers. Earlier this year, we successfully migrated the Dorset Council website onto the platform, which was closely followed by the migration of the Public Health Dorset website and then the creation of a new website for Fostering. The content on these sites is relatively static, with few updates required. However, when it comes to our Newsroom and Blog pages we needed to find ways in which we could build these into the platform whilst supporting their ever-changing need for fluid content.<\/p>\n

The Newsroom is managed by the communications team and provides easy access to the council\u2019s latest news and blogs, media contact information, e-newsletter sign up and news archive.<\/p>\n

Discovery<\/h2>\n


\n<\/span>\"Communications<\/a>To kick off discovery, I first needed to understand more about the \u2018as-is situation\u2019 for the current newsroom process so I held a real life, face to face workshop \u2013 seems so novel now we mostly work in a virtual environment, but I find these sessions are so fruitful with people in a room, often just talking things through.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The communications team attended with the objective to understand current processes, pinch points, and get a feel for how the newsroom currently performs.<\/span><\/p>\n

As-is <\/span>process <\/span>mapping<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/span>I am always fascinated by talking to services about their processes and understanding where I can <\/span><\/span><\/span>highlight potential <\/span><\/span>efficiencies and savings. I <\/span><\/span><\/span>took time<\/span><\/span> observing the communications team to understand how they publish news stories<\/span><\/span>, this type of<\/span>\u00a0research<\/span><\/span> is so helpful to <\/span><\/span>really<\/span><\/span> understand<\/span><\/span> how people <\/span><\/span>work\/behave<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It showed that <\/span><\/span>d<\/span><\/span>ue<\/span> to using systems for different purposes, which are not integrated<\/span>, the process is both time and labour intensive. Not only is this an <\/span>inefficient<\/span> use of resources, but it also<\/span>\u00a0is <\/span>not sustainable in the long-term <\/span>for the service<\/span> or its performance.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/span><\/span>ervice design is about looking at things outside in, viewing from the customers perspective so my next activity was to talk to users of the newsroom service.<\/span><\/span> To understand the user experience from a range of aud<\/span>i<\/span>ences, I set up a number of interviews.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Interviews<\/strong>
\n<\/span>I<\/span>n Dorset, we have a “People’s Panel” of residents who are interested in helping to shape the council’s policies and activities through our consultations.<\/span> We try in general, to avoid sending surveys out to our customers but I found there was a lack of documented evidence about the experiences people have of the newsroom service. <\/span><\/p>\n

I sent out a survey to the panel and conducted a series of interviews, speaking to residents and <\/span>colleagues across the council as services work closely with our communications team when it comes to news articles, notifications, features, and announcements.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I learnt that<\/strong><\/p>\n