Haringey Council's LocalGov Drupal Launch
Customer success case study
Enhancing digital services by creating a new, easy-to-use, and accessible website with LocalGov Drupal.
The goal was to simplify content for easy access and understanding while ensuring Government Digital Service (GDS) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance.
London Borough of Haringey (LBH) aimed to foster open dialogue with residents and create a website that reflects ‘Haringey as a place.’ We listened and co-produced a new user-centric, mobile-first LGD website, designed with users at the core.
Project challenges
- The existing site was difficult to navigate
- Residents could not easily find Haringey’s contact information
- Bright-coloured boxes and difficult-to-read fonts were hindering the accessibility for assistive technology users
- Users didn’t always understand the council terminology, such as ‘refuse and recycling’ and ‘local democracy’
- Duplicated and outdated content appeared across the existing website
Our approach
to tackling the project
The project was delivered in 5 phases; Discovery & Strategy, Alpha, Content Design Support, Beta and Launch to ensure the new website achieved an optimal user experience, and met GDS and WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
Phase 1: Discovery & Strategy
This phase ensured that LBH understood what their users wanted from the new platform and how they wished to engage with the council.
An analytics review was conducted of the original site to identify key user journeys and interactions, heat maps were used to highlight areas for improvement.
We gathered feedback from residents and stakeholders through surveys, 7 workshops, an in-person card sort and guerilla testing.
Phase 2: Alpha
This phase offered a chance to evaluate the functionality and usability across the content and navigation of the site.
We held stakeholder and member workshops, to gather feedback from the first 4 sections of the site. Content types, structure and user interfaces were reviewed, and also design iterations.
Website scenario testing, A/B testing, user surveys, click testing and a digital card sort were conducted to see how users were interacting with the website.
Usability, accessibility and content testing were conducted, to identify any accessibility failures against WCAG or GDS standards and any areas that didn’t offer a seamless user experience.
Phase 3: Content Design Support
Additional content support was required on 3 further sections, following rewrites of 2 full sections and part of another.
We helped upskill LBH’s internal content designers, using peer reviews, weekly knowledge sharing and critique sessions.
30% of content across the 3 sections was reduced. For example: ‘Refuse and Recycling’ was changed to ‘Rubbish and Recycling’ to reflect user insights gathered.
We also collaborated to create a style guide for ongoing content management, following GDS and WCAG standards.
Phase 4: Beta
This phase enabled us to conduct further user testing, to collect feedback on areas of improvement before the official launch.
Functionality, usability and accessibility testing was carried out on each iteration to ensure they met GDS and WCAG standards.
8 pages of content were tested and any content that had a high reading age or was not GDS compliant was fed back to the internal content designers for review and change.
Our development partner for this project, Annertech, fixed any bugs found, and implemented LBH’s website content onto LGD.
Phase 5: Launch
We successfully launched the council’s full new website to the public.
The results and outcomes
100%
Thoroughly user-tested WCAG 2.2 AA and OWASP Top 10 compliant website
30%
content reduction across the website
2+ mins
average reduction in time taken to complete key user journeys
Key user journey times, before and after Invuse involvement:
User Journey 1: Reporting a missed bin collection was reduced by 2 minutes and 34 seconds
User Journey 2: The time taken to find the ‘Online Application for Discretionary Housing Payment’ was reduced by 1 minute and 35 seconds
User Journey 3: ‘Find your Council Tax Band’ was reduced by 2 minutes and 8 seconds
User Journey 4: Find the price for a visitor parking permit was reduced by 49 seconds
Working with Invuse and Annertech on this project has been a real pleasure from start to finish. Their knowledge, experience and commitment to the highest standards of usability and accessibility has been second to none.
Paul Barnett
Digital Content and Development Manager, London Borough of Haringey Council