Website review

The project issues
For some years, Southampton City Council’s website had failed to achieve any recognised improvement. In the Better Connected 2006 survey, the website was rated as ‘C’ for a ‘Content’ site and in the bottom 38% of Local Authority websites.

Southampton City Council decided to redesign their website to enhance usability, to provide improved functionality for their users, increase traffic to the website and thereby reduce the need for telephone or face to face contact.

As a test of their success, Southampton City Council were aiming to achieve transactional status in the Better Connected 2007 survey

Southampton City Council commissioned Socitm Consulting to help achieve their aim.

The Socitm Consulting solution
Socitm Consulting reviewed the new design of the website and in particular, advised on:

• future development
• usability
• quality of content
• duplication
• best practice and general functionality

From this analysis and report, Southampton City Council were able to initiate a regime for improvement.

The website subsequently achieved full transactional status in the Better Connected 2007 survey and was commended for best practice.

The benefits to the client
The client reported that: “we really appreciate the feedback you provided. I think you said one thing to me which made the whole “transactional” thing “click” – it was the comment that nobody should need to pick up the telephone when using the website. It is now the yardstick against which we QA new web pages and it is a message we have finally got through to our web editors.”

Project identification
Client organisation: Southampton City Council
Client contact: Liz Bamforth, IT Project Manager, 023 8083 2987, elizabeth.bamforth@southampton.gov.uk 
Lead consultant: lamorna.spry@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 5805