{"id":174,"date":"2016-01-19T16:20:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T16:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetforyou.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=174"},"modified":"2016-01-19T16:20:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T16:20:23","slug":"choosing-the-right-technical-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2016\/01\/19\/choosing-the-right-technical-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing the right technical platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Smartphones\"<\/a>
\nWhilst it has had some additions and tweaks over the past few years, our last major re-working of Dorsetforyou.com was back in 2008. Clearly a lot has changed on the digital landscape since then. Far more users are choosing to interact with their council via digital channels, nearly half of our web visits are now from mobile devices (phones and tablets) and three quarters of internet users now have a social media profile.<\/p>\n

This offers a great opportunity to engage with users on the move, but people will only choose to use our digital services if they are designed with their needs in mind. This requires a re-assessment of our requirements and a digital platform that fits the bill.<\/p>\n

We were keen to explore whether it might be possible for us to re-use the code that the Government Digital Service (GDS) uses for www.gov.uk<\/a>. This would have given us a mature platform with a wide range of content types and functionality that\u2019s been through significant user testing at minimal expense.<\/p>\n

Sound too good to be true? Sadly it was. When our digital partner FutureGov<\/a> researched this option, re-using the code turned out to be significantly more difficult than hoped as the code had not been written with re-use in mind.<\/p>\n

FutureGov therefore suggested that we could supplement portions of GDS code that are easily re-usable with new code, but this would be more expensive and there would be risks around timescales, cost and quality.<\/p>\n

There are also a number of off-the-shelf options, both proprietary ones from vendors and open-source solutions.<\/p>\n

We have formed a project team to firm up our requirements, engage with the market and then go through a compliant procurement process.<\/p>\n

Whilst working through the above, we have been progressing a number of other things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Undertaking a web survey<\/a> to baseline existing satisfaction with various elements of Dorsetforyou.com (that will allow us to track progress annually) and learn direct from customers which elements they think need improving<\/li>\n
  2. Seeking out best practice from other councils that have been through a similar journey, such as Nottinghamshire County Council<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Promoting our existing digital services<\/a> that aim to be more convenient for customers whilst reducing our costs and helping us to protect vital services<\/li>\n
  4. Embedding the new design principles<\/a> and content principles that we adopted late last year and progressing the new team roles<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    On the last point, we think that our new ways of working are more important than the choice of technical platform as they will ensure that all content and digital services will be designed based on user need<\/a> rather than council need.<\/p>\n

    However, that is not to say that the choice of digital platform isn\u2019t important. So whilst we are keen to make a timely decision to keep the project on track, we need to be thorough to ensure it\u2019s the right one, providing all the functionality we need whilst keeping a lid on costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Whilst it has had some additions and tweaks over the past few years, our last major re-working of Dorsetforyou.com was back in 2008. Clearly a lot has changed on the digital landscape since then. Far more users are choosing to interact with their council via digital channels, nearly half of our web visits are now… Read more Choosing the right technical platform<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8,9],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/files\/2016\/01\/smartphones2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}