StarredStuff

Demos | Publications

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:51:21 +0000

Social Media shaping the research process: an interview with Ipsos Mori’s Sarah Castell | Minerva’s pencil case

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:50:39 +0000

What's on the 2013 government communicators' to-do list? | Public Leaders Network | Guardian Professional

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:07:29 +0000

Tweet us: what would you tell Alex Aiken, director of gov comms? | Public Leaders Network | Guardian Professional

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:06:14 +0000

How BT uses social media with internal communication

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:24:43 +0000

Bono can't help Africans by stealing their voice | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:19:03 +0000

infographic-how-to-create-the-perfect-post-on-social-media

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:54:07 +0000

sharonodea: Handy infographic guide to creating the perfect post on social media http://t.co/AQ8jFdqPJx

YouTube

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:25:34 +0000

AlistairReid: Russell Brand CRUCIFIES a team of dullards. http://t.co/eq5Pj7urGo

RoyalSlider WordPress Plugin

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:58:48 +0000

Five Ways To Prevent Bad Microcopy | Smashing UX Design

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:09:47 +0000

Theresa Couchman » Chromebook review! A bunch of people asked for...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:37:27 +0000

davebriggs: Nice quick Chromebook review: http://t.co/HTmCVEiSOl They are really interesting little machines.

How to write better page titles – Humanising Technology Blog

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:16:33 +0000

(Saving...)

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:56:36 +0000

Accountability and responsiveness in the Senior Civil Service - Publications - Inside Government - GOV.UK

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:54:36 +0000

Make it up as you go along — Thoughts on creativity — Medium

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:53:51 +0000

There is no Such Thing as Invention — I.M.H.O. — Medium

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:54:20 +0000

Gov.uk: how geeks opened up government - video | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:51:42 +0000

The Lean Startup | Methodology

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 06:56:26 +0000

Annemcx: I can empathise with this. #leanstartup https://t.co/R9C1axvVav

Super useful jQuery plugins for responsive web design | CatsWhoCode.com

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:40:04 +0000

catswhocode: Super useful jQuery plugins for responsive web design http://t.co/T5XYS6C4d6

Building a successful social media strategy

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 07:22:00 +0000

BBC - Food - Recipes : Easy chocolate cake

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:03:12 +0000

(106) Startups: What are the coolest startup culture hacks you've heard of? - Quora

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 06:05:11 +0000

'Wiki' style government policymaking means everyone is a lobbyist | Public Leaders Network | Guardian Professional

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:07:04 +0000

How to Use Social Media to Prevent a Crisis - cksyme.org

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:08:34 +0000

melissa_agnes: How to Use Social Media to Prevent a Crisis http://t.co/kX4VzkYdlE via @cksyme

Who do you trust in a crisis? | Minerva’s pencil case

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:07:24 +0000

marilyneb: Who do you trust in a crisis? http://t.co/v74cM7FZxt

Polemic: Why CSR makes me angry | Jericho Chambers

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:21:57 +0000

Crisis via Social Media | Social Media Today

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:06:53 +0000

The content strategy behind The Guardian's NSA/Edward Snowden uberstory | Econsultancy

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:11:38 +0000

Clerkenwell Workshops - EC1R - Unit: CS.108 Islington London | Workspace

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:07:36 +0000

Digital by Default Service Standard — Government Service Design Manual

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 07:39:12 +0000

Digital Workplace Trends report 2013 – Review « Adoption « ClearBox Consulting

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 06:59:44 +0000

Digital Workplace Trends report

Steve Spiker • Public Engagement in Cali

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 06:24:30 +0000

rodrigodavies: Public Engagement in Cali. How @OpenOakland is working to improve #opengov & #civicengagement http://t.co/XkhHBYiAn1 #cfabrigade

Content sharing & social networking buttons - Peak Usability

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:38:41 +0000

How people read online: Why you won’t finish this article. - Slate Magazine

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:37:33 +0000

This week at GDS | Government Digital Service

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:37:27 +0000

BBC News - 'Shock jock' disrupts BBC's Sunday Politics show

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:33:22 +0000

Auto-Forwarding Carousels, Accordions Annoy Users & Reduce Visibility

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 08:24:52 +0000

smashingmag: You want to add a carousel to your website? Think again: Auto-Forwarding Carousels Annoy Users, Reduce Visibility - http://t.co/10Q1yUbsaG

A No-Nonsense Beginners’ Guide to Infographics | Digital democracy, news, thinking, tips & tricks

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 06:02:12 +0000

DelibThinks: A No-Nonsense Beginners’ Guide to Infographics http://t.co/vtNsNluQyW

Report: Corporations must join the Collaborative Economy | Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:03:51 +0000

When is the best time of day to send an email? - Smart Insights Digital Marketing Advice

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 07:06:49 +0000

DaveChaffey: When is the best time of day to send an email? It depends… http://t.co/EF4HFRsVQs

Taksim Square - A Social Media Battleground | NDItech | democracyworks

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:46:37 +0000

demsoc: Noted: Taksim Square - A Social Media Battleground | NDItech | democracyworks http://t.co/3xeC8eS7LA

How MailChimp use Evernote | Kind of Digital

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:27:44 +0000

How brands can embrace newsjacking, real-time and rapid response marketing - Brand Republic News

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:49:41 +0000

MPs call for 'wiki-style' approach to policy which seeks public opinion | Public Leaders Network | Guardian Professional

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:44:07 +0000

Social media risk & compliance in the finance sector | CrowdControlHQ - The smart way to control social media risk

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:12:10 +0000

Breaking Workplace Taboos: A Conversation About Salary Transparency - 99U

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 04:56:10 +0000

benrmatthews: RT @bufferapp "A Conversation About Salary Transparency with Buffer" http://t.co/tREFKovBs7

Simon WP Framework, Simon Web Design

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:06:04 +0000

simond: Oi @cftp colleagues: we need to start using this. Obvious reason. http://t.co/dyP1yut0wH

You Can't Just Hack Your Way to Social Change - Jake Porway - Harvard Business Review

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:38:10 +0000

1818bb8c6ca8

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:16:59 +0000

How to apologize to a customer | UserCentered - Customer service, customer support, community management, and other ways to keep your customers

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:34:28 +0000

blaisegv: How to apologize to a customer #cmgr http://t.co/2FrnfdgJsJ

GOV.UK blogs - how to get one

gkfrancis — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Never wireframe alone

Paul Boag — Tue, 21 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Most web designers consider the creation of wireframes an important part of their web design process. However, less consider it a group activity.

I love creating wireframes. As I explain in my post the 7 wonders of wireframes I find they are invaluable. You can debate about how refined wireframes should be, but I think there can be little doubt that some form of wireframing is invaluable.

Nevertheless, much of their power is lost if the designer produces wireframes in isolation. It’s only when they are used as a collaborative tool that they reach their potential. They are a tool for sharing ideas and starting discussion.

Who should be involved in wireframing?

As a minimum wireframing needs to be carried out by the entire project team. This should include:

Designer.
Copywriter.
UX specialist.
Developer.
Project Manager.
Client.

The last one is particularly important. Many don’t think of the client as a member of the project team but they should be seen in that way. Their involvement in wireframe creation is invaluable, as I will explain below.

We shouldn’t stop at the project team. We should also be bringing in a selection of stakeholders and even on occasions users to contribute. Only then do you begin to see the real benefits of wireframing.

Why wireframe with others

Including the project team in wireframing is fairly obvious. After all if the developer is involved in the wireframing process, technical issues will be spotted early and problems avoided further down the line. Equally having copywriters, designers, project managers and all the other team members means that everybody is ‘singing off the same hymn sheet’ and each can bring their own expertise to bear.

The client has a unique understanding of their sector, business and audience which other team members often cannot match.

Including the client also makes a lot of sense. The client has a unique understanding of their sector, business and audience which other team members often cannot match. By including them in the creation of wireframing we can make use of that knowledge.

Including the client also gives us a chance to educate and engage them in the process. If the client has been involved in wireframing they will be better informed about the design and feel they have contributed to its creation. This means they are much less likely to reject it.

Including the client also gives us a chance to educate and engage them in the process.

The same can be said for other stakeholders. Each has their own unique contribution to make, but more importantly, by bringing them into the process they feel listens to and engaged. They go away with a sense of ownership about the direction the design is taking and so will be more likely to support it later.

In short, by wireframing as a group everybody goes away feeling they have been consulted and hopefully confident in the direction being taken. Everybody has a clear picture of where the site is going.

That said, you cannot hope to wireframe everything in detail with so many people involved. That is why how you run a collaborative wireframing session is so important.

How to run a collaborative wireframing session

So how does this all work in practice? First, you need to be realistic. Running a full day workshop dedicated to wireframing will leave you exhausted and your participants brain dead. In my experience three hours is more than enough in one sitting.

The advantage of keeping a session relatively short is you can keep the momentum going. The idea here isn’t to hammer down every detail but rather to create a consensus that can be refined outside of the meeting.

The idea here isn’t to hammer down every detail but rather to create a consensus that can be refined outside of the meeting.

Momentum is best maintained by running a number of short exercises. Each exercise should build on the one before taking us closer to something tangible.

Remember, the aim of the session is to…

Establish any issues with the direction being taken.
To make people feel included and engaged with the process.
To educate the client and other stakeholders.
Ensure everybody has the same vision.

It helps to go into the workshop with a list of key pages you wish to wireframe. This normally includes more complex pages such as the homepage, landing pages etc. Prioritise the list and then if you don’t get to all of the pages you have at least tackled the important ones.

With that list in hand, here are a few exercises I cycle through for each page we are looking at.

Opening the floodgates

I begin by opening the floodgates and getting people to suggest every element that could or should appear on a page. The idea is that you just get everything out there, without worrying about how appropriate or otherwise the idea is.

If it is a small group then we do this all together with people shouting out ideas and me writing them on a whiteboard. If the group is larger then we split down into smaller groups. It can sometimes be interesting to divide people into disciplines (e.g. put all the sales and marketing people together). This can highlight some of the profound differences in how people see the role of the website.

This exercise should end with a giant list of every screen element somebody might want to include.

Whatever the case, this exercise should end with a giant list of every screen element somebody might want to include, from the logo to a news area and everything in-between.

Now comes the point where they have to start prioritising. There are two exercises which help with that. You can do either or both. These are; the cereal box exercise and the user attention exercise.

The cereal box exercise

It’s amazing how unwilling many stakeholders are to prioritise their content when it comes to the web. The ability to create endlessly scrolling pages seems to encourage them to weight everything equally.

It’s amazing how unwilling many stakeholders are to prioritise their content.

One way around this problem is not to talk about websites, but start with something that has physical constraints. Something like a cereal box.

Ask your group (or smaller groups if there is a lot of people) to use the list of elements to design a cereal box. They have to consider what goes on the front, back, top, bottom and sides of the box.

Asking people to design a cereal box for their organisation rather than a website helps them focus on what their key messages are.

The exercise of deciding what to include and what to leave out, along with where to position different elements will help them prioritise. They will naturally put the most important thing on the back and least important elements on the bottom.

The cereal box exercise is a great starting point, but sooner or later we need to turn our attention to the actual page being designed. That is where the user attention exercise can help.

User attention exercise

The user attention exercise is a simple one. You explain to your audience that users have finite attention. You therefore assign the page we are wireframing 15 points of user attention (this number can be higher if required). Each element the group adds to the page costs one point. If they want the user to pay more attention to a particular item then they need to give it more user attention points.

The groups natural inclination will be to cram as many items on the page as possible, spending one or two points on each item. When they do this I tend to ask them which website is more effective in their opinion Yahoo! or Google. People always pick the latter.

Yahoo! have spread user attention across their entire homepage with little in the way of focus.

I then show them the two sites side by side and point out that Google has spent the vast majority of its user attention points on the search box. This normally helps people to start focusing on where they spend their points.

Google spend their user attention on the search box, focusing on the pages primary purpose.

By the end of the exercise you will have a clear indication of where the priority of any page should lie. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore other approaches. For this we use the six up exercise.

Six up exercise

This exercise encourages experimentation. It is an exercise people normally do individually, although it also works in small groups.

You take a sheet of paper and fold it in half vertically and thirds horizontally so creating six boxes.

Each person (or group) now has to create six versions of the page in question. Each little sketch will be very basic but will explore different ways the page could be tackled.

The six up exercise doesn’t create detailed wireframes but it is great for exploring alternative approaches.

Participants will quite easily do one or two versions but will begin to struggle after that. Coming up with six approaches will be an effort and they may need some advice (e.g. try producing versions of the page aimed at different audiences or with emphasis on different value propositions).

The exercise has one of two outcomes. Sometimes it uncovers an alternative approach that might otherwise have been missed. If that does not happen it demonstrates that the obvious approach really is the only option, even if its not perfect.

In a lot of cases the above exercises is all you will get through. However, with more important pages (such as the homepage) it maybe worth refining a little further.

Refine and discuss

It is perfectly possible to go away with all of the data collected from the exercises above and complete the wireframes yourself. However, sometimes it is a good idea to get more concrete agreement in the room.

You may want to sketch out an approach for certain pages based on all of the feedback provided and discuss it with the group. You often find that with all of the previous exercises still fresh in their minds, they are quite happy to agree with your approach because they now understand why it is being taken. That is the heart of collaborative wireframing – it prevents endless iteration.

Avoiding endless iteration

Working on wireframes (or worse still, design comps) in isolation and then seeking approval leads to endless back and forth, tweaking and amendments. Conference calls have to be arranged, email conversations are stilted and misunderstandings are common place.

By getting everybody in a room working on the wireframes together you can cut through all of that. No, you won’t be able to go into massive detail. But, you will be able to clearly define a general direction that will save a lot of time in the long run.

Here is a question for you

Do you wireframe in groups? What exercises do you use? What has your experience been?

Post comments here

Yesteryear's newspapers of tomorrow

Jason Kottke — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:28:21 +0000

From Paleofuture, a review of past predictions of what newspapers might look like in the future.

In the 1920s it was radio that was supposed to kill the newspaper. Then it was TV news. Then it was the Internet. The newspaper has evolved and adapted (remember when TV news killed the evening edition newspaper?) and will continue to evolve for many decades to come.

Visions of what newspapers might look like in the future have been varied throughout the 20th century. Sometimes they've taken the form of a piece of paper that you print at home, delivered via satellite or radio waves. Other times it's a multimedia product that lives on your tablet or TV. Today we're taking a look at just a few of the newspapers from the futures that never were.

My favorite is this radio that prints newspapers:

(via @H_FJ)

Tags: journalism lists

Search rankings with Google Spreadsheets

Tara Stockford — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:44:18 +0000

As one of the product analysts for GOV.UK, search is my main focus. Recently I built a handy tool to get an overview of Google search results, to help us review and optimise our content. I thought it was worth sharing as other people might find it useful, and my version was inspired by the work of others.

How to use the rank checker

If you just want to get on and use it, you don’t need to know much about how it all works. First, get your own copy of the spreadsheet:

You’ll need to be logged in to a Google/Gmail account with access to Google Drive (formerly Google Docs)
Open the view-only Google SEO rank checker spreadsheet
Select File > Make a copy…
Give the document a name and click OK

Now you’ll have an editable version, ready to customise with the keywords you want to check:

Enter your website URL in the top left corner (eg https://www.gov.uk)
Enter your keywords or phrases in the top row – one in each column
(Optional) Enter the URLs you’re interested in into the first column, from cell A5 downwards
(Optional) Highlight the search results section from row 17 to the bottom, select Format > Conditional formatting…, and enter your website URL next to ‘Text contains’

You should now see the top 50 Google UK results for each of your keywords, with any results for your website highlighted in yellow. At the top, you’ll see your current highest position for each keyword (or ‘Not in top 50’), followed by the position of any specific URLs you’ve entered.

You can insert as many extra rows as you want for specific URLs (copy the formulas from the row above), or delete rows if you don’t need them. And you can add more keyword columns, up to a limit of 50 per spreadsheet. To keep things simpler and faster, use several spreadsheets for different topics/sections rather than cramming all your keywords into one big file.

Bear in mind that the results will be reloaded every time you open the spreadsheet, so if you want to save a snapshot of a particular day, copy and paste the data to a new sheet using ‘Paste values only’ (or take screenshots).

Note: If you see #N/A or #VALUE! because the results haven’t loaded properly, try re-entering or changing the keyword, or just wait a while for the data to refresh.

How the spreadsheet works

The core function is a Google Spreadsheets feature called ImportXML, which ‘scrapes’ information from a web page or a file. In this case, it’s extracting the URLs from search results.

Credit must go to Nathan Grimm, a marketing manager from Seattle who shared a formula that works, which got me started. Lots of people have written useful guides to building SEO tools (for search engine optimisation) using ImportXML, but the older methods no longer work properly with Google’s current search result format.

After breaking down the formula to understand how it worked, with a bit of trial and error I adapted it to find the highest ranking for any URL beginning with ‘https://www.gov.uk/’. At first it was a simple vertical list of keywords, but I realised that to check several URLs it was using an ImportXML call each time and would soon hit the limit of 50 per spreadsheet.

It also seemed more useful to see the actual results at a glance, rather than just the ranking numbers. So I rejigged it to a horizontal layout with the keywords along the top, and split the formula into three parts:

First, the ImportXML formula in row 17 fetches the top Google search results for the keyword in row 1, and shows them from row 17 downwards.
The formula in row 2 looks at this list of results to see if it can find the website from cell A1, and if so, in what position. If there’s no match, it shows ‘Not in top 50’.
The formula in rows 5-14 looks at the same list of results to see if it can find the specific URL in column A, and if so, in what position. If there’s no match, it shows a blank space.

This way, you can compare the results side by side for a set of related keywords, and each keyword only needs one ImportXML call, no matter how many URLs you check against its results.

The Google search URL in the ImportXML function includes several variables:

&pws=0 gets the ‘standard’ results as seen by users who aren’t signed in to Google, rather than your personalised results
&gl=UK gets results from Google UK – change it to another country code if you need to
&num=50 gets the top 50 results – change the number if you want more or fewer

Annoyingly, the conditional formatting in Google Spreadsheets can’t automatically use the URL from the top left cell. I looked into doing this with a script but it seemed complicated, so for now the URL has to be entered separately in the conditional formatting settings. You could also highlight your main competitors or partners in different colours for an easy overview.

This is simply a spreadsheet so everything can be customised to suit you. If you make something better, why not share it?

Why GOV.UK cares about ranking

There’s debate among search analysts and marketers about how much rankings really matter. Studies have claimed that up to 53% of clicks go to the top result (or 36%, or 18%). Most people choose one of the first few results, and rarely look past the first page. But tracking your exact position is less meaningful now that search results are increasingly personalised for different users.

What matters most for GOV.UK is that people can quickly find accurate information about government services. That’s an essential part of our aim to be ‘simpler, clearer, faster’. If people can’t find what they need online, they may end up using more expensive telephone services or paper forms.

Some other sources might not be accurate, either because they’re out of date, or they’ve misunderstood something, or they’re slightly misleading – for example, charging for a service that’s available free, or charging a premium for checking an application. So we want to make sure that people can easily find the official, current government information near the top of their search results.

For more details about how we’re using search analytics, see Lana Gibson’s posts: The SEO war – fighting the good fight in search and SEO for GOV.UK.

Filed under: Performance

Your Own Participation

Richard Millington — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:30:00 +0000

Why do you personally participate in your community?

If your community is your hobby, then continue as you were. It's just for fun.

If you're being paid to manage the community, you need to know the goal of your own participation.

Your goal in the inception stage might be to stimulate activity to reach critical mas. This is reasonable. In the maturity stage your goal might be to gain influence. This is also a credible goal.

Yet, there is a clear difference in actions between the two.

This is why it’s smart to know why you are personally participating in the community and what you intend to achieve.

If you’re participating to build influence and credibility, then refrain from the casual chatter and focus on adding unique value/insight in every discussion.

If you’re trying to build relationships with key members, then focus on the discussions in which those members are also participating and on personal interactions with them.

If you’re participating to get the community started, then you need to initiate discussions based upon the topics people most want to talk about (typically those which are most emotive, highlight common problems, common experiences or common aspirations).

There is no harm in aimless participation, there is just no use in it either.

Comic for March 21, 2013

(author unknown) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Here's What Can Happen In An Internet Minute [Infographic]

Brian Proffitt — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Child code hackers- what are governments doing to protect their systems?

Craig Thomler — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:20:01 +0000

Hacking is child’s play – or so it seems as young people, some aged only 11, are beginning to use various tools and instructions online to hack into online games, as reported by Mashable:

The rise of state-based hacking (whether for political or commercial reasons) has had a profound effect on the challenges facing government agencies, both in terms of their own security and in terms of how they protect the citizens and businesses that exist under their jurisdictional protection.

It is interesting to consider that if foreign troops or terrorists invaded a business’s building in Melbourne or London, the respective central government for that city would be expected and obliged to respond with its own armed police and troops. However if the same business’s computer systems were invaded by a similarly malicious foreign power, terrorist group or criminal syndicate, the business is alone, held almost totally responsible for their own security and protection – despite the potential for severe economic disruption or damage to the national interest.

That situation becomes even more complex if the foreign troops behind the digital attack are children.

With a seven year old now the youngest person to develop a mobile app, with other children around that age now developing coding skills and with potential motivations, such as unlocking special pets, levels or privileges in online games and social networks, how long will it be before young children are trained and put to work as hackers by criminal or state organisations?

Not too long, in my view, which comes back to the main question – what should governments be doing to protect their systems, and the systems of citizens and businesses, from a rising tide of state-sponsored hacking, particularly as it becomes child’s play?

Content strategy: there's no such thing as a finished website

Suzanne Amos — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:53:00 +0000

"There's no such thing as a finished website," says content strategist Sue Davis, "Content has a lifecycle - you can't just fling it up and forget it."

Sue, whose clients include the European Union, was speaking at the London Content Strategy Meetup's January lightning talks.

The content lifecycle by Erin Scime

Sue's slideshow, 10 Content strategy visuals that changed the world, showed us the content lifecycle. It involves setting up a proper process for creating new content and maintaining content.

How does your garden grow?

If you don't have processes in place to manage the content lifecycle, your website will quickly look and feel like an overgrown garden - not great for your users.

You end up with multiple versions of the same content. The information on one page contradicts the info on another. Search gets clogged with out-of-date and duplicate pages.

In big organisations, it can be an uphill battle to implement a content strategy. Senior people don't realise the need for a formal content strategy - they think the website can take care of itself and don't realise the risks of leaving it to grow and grow.

The big question is how do you get people to 'get' content strategy?

Giving it to us straight

angelacollinsrees — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:54:36 +0000

With the number of ministerial departments, public bodies and agencies on Inside Government increasing each month and features being released or adjusted daily, it is important to gauge the success of each iteration. That way, we can make sure that it continues to support existing and new users’ needs.

At the end of December, I wrote about the usability research we have been conducting on Inside Government since its launch. Here’s an update on our latest round of lab-based testing.

Qualitative insight

Our lab-based testing provides qualitative data. The testing combines 11 moderated lab-based and 14 unmoderated ‘in-home’ sessions conducted by an independent research agency.

Participants in the January sessions had a professional interest in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) and were long-standing, frequent users of those departmental sites. They were, therefore, well-placed to give us honest, informed appraisals of what was now working better since transition and what wasn’t.

Positive feedback

Awareness of GOV.UK was very strong, with many participants mentioning it even before they had been told it was the site they would be testing. They reacted positively to the new departmental sections, especially the consistent look and feel, which they felt was appropriate for a range of audiences

Participants felt that the department homepages looked good, and provided access to useful information, while the inline links offered useful cues for further journeys through the site.

After previous rounds of testing, we’d tweaked and repositioned the filters on index pages. Participants now found it easier to locate detailed policy information.

As soon as they landed on a policy page, participants were keen to find the latest information. Following on from that feedback we’ve ensured that this content is far more visible.

Topic pages also performed well, bringing together content on a particular subject from a number of departments. Providing this ‘horizontal’ browsing route across multiple organisations can be tricky but we were heartened to find out that users really appreciated this approach.

Constructive criticism

Positive feedback is great but we’re more interested in finding out if and at what point, the site falls short of users’ expectations. These sessions showed us which sections of GOV.UK needed more work.

We know that search is the main method for navigating around GOV.UK, but these sessions demonstrated that the search functionality available within the site did not perform as well as expected. This caused some frustration among our participants.

This is now a priority for us and we’re working on it. There’s a multidisciplinary group tasked with rapidly improving the search. Immediately after the lab testing, the Inside Government team used the information from the sessions to improve the relevance and timeliness of results in the site’s internal search.

The top navigation menu was less used than we thought. Once users did see it, some expected that it would only apply to specific departments rather than the whole of government. We are addressing this and we’ll retest soon.

Navigating back to departmental pages also proved challenging for participants when they found themselves within the main GOV.UK site. This ‘cross-product’ proposition will form the basis of a much larger piece of research, but right now we’re looking at highlighting the ‘route home’ for those who want to base their use of Inside Government around a departmental homepage.

Large ‘advert-like’ images on department pages fared less well with participants, who criticised the use of these sites as ‘marketing vehicles’. We know from our research that users like appropriate imagery on the department sites, and we want to encourage departments to make choices that will enhance, engage and add value to their pages. With editorial guidelines already in place, these user insights will help to guide publishers on what works best.

Where do we go from here?

It may be uncomfortable to hear and see people critique the site, yet without this insight we wouldn’t know what to improve. That is why we take these findings seriously and iterate the designs and functions. We then re-test.

We have another round of qualitative testing scheduled for April. We’ll look at the issues we’ve discussed in this post and we’ll test new features including topical events and location-based sites.

Before then we will have the results from another round of testing and data analysis on how Inside Government is being used. We’ll keep you posted.

Filed under: Inside Government

Tick tock… the countdown to the deadline for Giii submissions approaches…

Nicola Westmore — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:25:39 +0000

It’s less than a week to go until the deadline for the submission to tender expires at 15.00 on 28^th February 2013. We are anticipating a large number of responses for G-Cloud iii, so we would like to remind you not to leave your submissions to the last day! A few other things to remember:

The deadline for clarification questions has now closed and any further questions submitted to GPS will not be answered.
Once you have completed all of the questions about your services on the online ITT tool, don’t forget to submit them to tender. To do this you must go into each service and click the “submit to tender” button.
Make sure the files names included in the online ITT tool (gcloudcatalogue.cabinetoffice.gov.uk – Service Definition, Terms and Condition and other supporting documents) are identical to the names of the files you attach to your tender submission in the GPS portal.
When attaching documents in the GPS portal (under AQB2), please ensure that you zip them in one file to keep the size of the file to a minimum. Only include documentation to support information that directly relates to the services you will be providing through CloudStore – not forgetting the two most important, the terms & conditions and service definition(s) documents.
Your offerings are fixed at the point of tender, so make sure you have described your service functionality clearly and comprehensively, and ensure that your pricing models are appropriate for all types of your likely buyers (short & long term, high & low volume) rather than 1 size fits all – be clear, competitive and transparent, to make it as easy as possible for buyers to understand.
Are your terms and conditions appropriate for the different sectors you may be selling to – e.g. NHS or Local authorities? Are they helping or hindering buyers? – Don’t miss business because they can’t buy from you; only because an offering was a better fit.
The service definition document is your “front window” for buyers, so make sure it helps them by aligning with the buying process and to make it as easy as possible to find information – do they have everything all the information they need to short-list your service? Do they need to wade through to find important information?
Within each service, make sure that you have completed meaningful service names and descriptions as these are the fields a buyer will see first Remember to ensure the contact details you provide us for the CloudStore are for people within the sales team and not the Chief Executive!

Good luck!

Recovering after social media disasters

Jim Coleman — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:09:31 +0000

The Wall recently carried the following article from me, commenting on this week’s social media disasters, and how brands can avoid the same fate themselves, and how to best deal with it if it does happen.

Back in November, I did a fairly comprehensive run through of the social media fails in 2012, which included a prestigious roll call of brands such as Waitrose, McDonalds, Gap and Qantas – these household names, and many more, had all suffered from a social media fail.

So far in 2013, we’ve seen less ill advised campaigns, but more high profile disasters of a different kind. This week, the Burger King Twitter account was hacked by an unknown internet vigilante who posted a series of controversial (and clearly inaccurate) tweets, including one that stated the fast food giant had been bought by its main rival, McDonalds. The hackers, obviously pleased with the furore they had caused, then moved swiftly on to Jeep’s Twitter account, which last night was displaying a Cadillac logo.

In a fairly similar recent incident, a Twitter hijacker claiming to be an axed HMV worker took over the music retailer’s Twitter account. The person in question was apparently tweeting live as the beleaguered retailer was letting many of its staff go, using the hashtag #hmvXFactorFiring.

So far, not so good. These brands, or the agencies running their accounts, have been criticised by the media, come under intense scrutiny from consumers and have been ridiculed by the industry as a whole. So how can they turn around these disasters and use them to their advantage?

Well, to start with, these public fails attract a lot of attention. Burger King woke up yesterday morning 30,000 followers richer than the day before. And while the attention may not necessarily be good at the moment, any dramatic increase in a social community always presents an opportunity to engage with and hold on to this new audience.

An important lesson for brands is to have a sense of humour. Yes, a hacked account is a serious business and obviously must be remedied quickly, and a badly managed campaign can be embarrassing at best, damaging to the brand at worst – but this doesn’t mean that companies should hide under the bed with their eyes closed until the criticism goes away.

Consumers and media alike are much more forgiving of a brand that’s willing to admit it’s made a mistake, and will appreciate a bit of self deprecation. Waitrose handled its #WaitroseReasons social media fail pretty well last year. It took the obvious mishap on the chin and showed some personality in its response. It certainly didn’t do the brand any long term damage and some even said the campaign was a secret success, which is pretty remarkable, all things considered.

So, while Burger King was fairly slow to react to the hack initially (though part of the blame here does lie with Twitter itself), how it handles it from here could mean the difference between turning a disaster into a success or just experiencing one of the most high profile fails of the year.

We haven’t seen the last of Twitter accounts being hacked, so brands should be taking every precaution they can to protect themselves, from ensuring their passwords are of maximum length and in as few hands as possible, to giving only easily revocable access to their accounts for their internal and external teams using third party management tools – and an accepted process surrounding all of this.

And for those considering a fake hack, yes MTV, we’re talking about you – don’t. Firstly, because consumers have already lost interest – Jeep’s hack attracted a lot less attention than Burger King’s – and secondly, and more importantly, because to use social media effectively, we need to work with consumers to build confidence, not shake it at a time when the perception of the reliability of the social media industry is hardly at an all time high.

Say hello to the Subscribe Button

David Greiner — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:16:53 +0000

Activating citizens in Ukraine: A story worth telling

Ingrid Prikken — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:31:15 +0000

Involve was recently in Kiev to work with Ukrainian organisation People First Foundation (PFF), in collaboration with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Whilst the context in Ukraine is very different to the UK, there’s a lot for both sides to learn from these exchanges; for example, that any successful engagement process starts with a clear story.

PFF is a foundation whose mission is strengthening democracy in Ukraine through dialogue, active communication and monitoring. Their ambitious programme of work starts with research into the state of democracy and civil society. Ultimately, they hope the findings will inform a People’s Charter process for Ukraine. To do this, PFF is looking to actively engage citizens across the country in the issues that matter to them and to do this they want to use both off-line and online engagement activities. We spent four days with PFF building their knowledge of engagement, highlighting inspiring examples from across the globe and supporting them to develop their own mobilisation strategy.

Knotty context

The country has a relatively young democracy but is facing massive challenges in how government and elected representatives perform their democratic duties. Ultimately PFF wants to change this and it wants to do it by engaging citizens. Today, most citizens feel far removed from the State and this is reflected in very low levels of trust and expectation. Despite some early promise, Ukrainian society is infused with corruption and abuses of power. People see both government and opposition focussed on shoring up power for themselves, shadowy funders and a lack of openness and transparency. Citizens feel that they are left to their own devices and recent history tells them not to trust in the ruling elite.

Corresponding barriers

Not the easiest set of circumstances to sow the seeds for popular and wide-spread engagement, but it’s exactly in this context where engagement is most important and potentially the most fruitful. At their core, the challenges Ukraine faces are not that different from what we see in the UK. Fuelled by negative experiences and stories, barriers for citizens to engage in the UK are in essence quite similar. Even a recent media focus on the rise of Britain’s political elite has echoes with the Ukrainian situation. Apathy – “nothing will change, so why bother” – is high and trust in political decision-makers low, and this stops people from engaging.

So, in the UK, we recognise the big challenge faced by PFF: How to motivate people to engage in this project and, ultimately, with democracy. How do you (re)build trust in a country where the very term ‘democracy’ is as contaminated as one of Ukraine’s most famous landmarks at Chernobyl. How to transform the situation so that, slowly, democracy is associated with a system that works for citizens and where citizens have the power to make meaningful changes to their own lives?

Convincing story

There are many parts to this process but the critical first step is getting the story right. Start with a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve. If you can’t articulate your own values and aims then how can you communicate them to others? Frame your message so that people can buy into it.

More than this, ensure that the message is tailored to your different audiences, otherwise it risks being bland and missing the target. Make sure you explain why you are trying to develop an active group of citizens, and moreover, explain what’s in it for them.

Be willing to have a dialogue about the issues that matter to them and use their hopes and concerns as the hook for your message. Remembering, of course, that these issues will be different for students than they are for middle-aged women or young working-class men. Aggregated together all their issues are the starting point that can be used to link back to the overall aim of strengthening democracy.

In Ukraine it is not just the democratic present that breeds distrust but less recent history of the Soviet-era. People will challenge your vision and find fault. This is legitimate because trust has to be earned and faint hopes have so often been dashed. Recognise that many will see what you are doing through the eyes of history, your challenge is to respond by framing your message as a vision for the future.

Ingrid Prikken & Dr. Andy Williamson

Image by Sharon Drummond

BLOKK Font

(author unknown) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:40:27 +0000

WordPress snippets, hacks and tips to enhance your comments section

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:12:32 +0000

Allow more HTML tags in WordPress comments

By default, WordPress allow commenters to use some HTML tags in the comment textarea. But depending on your blog, you might want to allow the use of more tags.

To do so, simply paste the code below into your functions.php file. The list of allowed tags can be modified on line 4.

// Create function which allows more tags within comments
function allow_pres() {
  global $allowedtags;
  $allowedtags['pre'] = array('class'=>array());
}

// Add WordPress hook to use the function
add_action('comment_post', 'allow_pres');

» Source: http://davidwalsh.name/wordpress-comment-tags

Remove autolinks in comments

When a commenter paste a url link into the comment form, WordPress automatically transform it into a hypertext link. This is good on most cases, but personally I do not like this as many people used my blog comments to advertise their own products and services.

Removing autolinks in comments is super easy: Just insert the line of code below into your functions.php file.

remove_filter('comment_text', 'make_clickable', 9);

» Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-hack-remove-autolinks-in-comments

Remove the url field from WordPress comments form

If you don’t want your commenters to be able to enter their website url, here is a snippet to remove the url field from WordPress comment form.

Simple paste the code below in your functions.php file, save it, and you’re done.

function remove_comment_fields($fields) {
    unset($fields['url']);
    return $fields;
}
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields','remove_comment_fields');

» Source: http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creative-coding/customizing-comments…

Add more fields to the comments form

I just shown you how to remove a field from the comment form, but now, what if you want to add a new field to the form? The following example will add a new field for the commenter to add his age.

Let’s start by adding the field. To do this, copy the code below and paste it in your functions.php file:

function add_comment_fields($fields) {
 
    $fields['age'] = '<p class="comment-form-age"><label for="age">' . __( 'Age' ) . '</label>' .
        '<input id="age" name="age" type="text" size="30" /></p>';
    return $fields;
 
}
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields','add_comment_fields');

function add_comment_meta_values($comment_id) {
 
    if(isset($_POST['age'])) {
        $age = wp_filter_nohtml_kses($_POST['age']);
        add_comment_meta($comment_id, 'age', $age, false);
    }
 
}
add_action ('comment_post', 'add_comment_meta_values', 1);

Now, to display the age of the commenter, use the following code:

<?php echo "Comment authors age: ".get_comment_meta( $comment->comment_ID, 'age', true ); ?>

» Source: http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creative-coding/customizing-comments…

Insert comments programatically

On some specific cases, you might want to insert comments programmatically. Doing so is definitely easy, as shown below. Simply execute this code and it will add a new comment in your database.

$data = array(
	'comment_post_ID' => 1,
	'comment_author' => 'admin',
	'comment_author_email' => 'admin@admin.com',
	'comment_author_url' => 'http://www.catswhocode.com',
	'comment_content' => 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...',
	'comment_author_IP' => '127.0.0.1',
	'comment_agent' => 'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; fr; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3',
	'comment_date' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
	'comment_date_gmt' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
	'comment_approved' => 1,
);

$comment_id = wp_insert_comment($data);

» Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-hack-insert-comments-programatically

Automatically disable commenting on posts older than X days

If your blog is very popular, you probably receive lots of comments, some on very old posts… So why not automatically disable commenting on posts older than X days?

Paste the code below in your functions.php file. The code will disable comments on post older than 30 days. The amount of days can be changed on line 3.

function close_comments( $posts ) {
	if ( !is_single() ) { return $posts; }
	if ( time() - strtotime( $posts[0]->post_date_gmt ) > ( 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 ) ) {
		$posts[0]->comment_status = 'closed';
		$posts[0]->ping_status    = 'closed';
	}
	return $posts;
}
add_filter( 'the_posts', 'close_comments' );

» Source: http://perishablepress.com/wordpress-tip-disable-comments-in-old-posts-via-php/

Add target=”blank” to all links in comment text

Using the HTML target="blank" attribute is generally discouraged as this force the opening of a link in a new tab or window, but I know how clients like it. So if you need to add a target="blank" attribute to every links in comments text, just paste the code shown below in your functions.php and you’ll get the job done.

function autoblank($text) {
	$return = str_replace('<a', '<a target="_blank"', $text);
	return $return;
}
add_filter('comment_text', 'autoblank');

» Source: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/snippets/add-target_blank-on-all-link

Customize comments markup

By default, WordPress outputs a standard comments list, but if can be customized if needed. Paste the following code into your functions.php file and customize as desired.

function my_custom_comments($comment, $args, $depth) {
   $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>
   <li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
   <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
      <em><?php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em>
   <?php endif; ?>

   // Comments markup code here, e.g. functions like comment_text(); 

}

Once done, use the following line of code in comments.php to display your custom comment markup:

<?php wp_list_comments("callback=my_custom_comments"); ?>

» Source: http://css-tricks.com/snippets/wordpress/customize-comments-markup/

Disable comments feeds in individual posts

By default, WordPress create RSS feeds for all individual posts. If you don’t want or need them, you can disable them with the following code snippet. Simply paste it in your functions.php file and you’ll get rid of individual post feeds.

// disable comment feeds for individual posts
function disablePostCommentsFeedLink($for_comments) {
	return;
}
add_filter('post_comments_feed_link','disablePostCommentsFeedLink');

» Source: http://digwp.com/2009/11/disable-comment-feeds-individual-posts/

Want more WordPress tips and snippets? Then have a look to WPRecipes, another blog of mine!

Comic for February 17, 2013

(author unknown) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Wireframing responsive sites

Paul Boag — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:25:54 +0000

Wireframing responsive sites can be time consuming as you have to mockup each screen size. Ed Merritt is in the process of solving this problem.

Apologises for the shit quality of this video, but I wanted to give you a quick glimpse into the cool stuff Ed is doing at Headscape.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could create wireframes that were as responsive as the site they are meant to represent.

Here is a question for you

So what do you think of Ed's approach? How could it be improved.

Post comments here

Guardian interview with the Director of the Behavioural Insights Team

Behavioural Insights Team — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:25:46 +0000

Read an interview with Dr David Halpern, BIT Director, in today’s Guardian.

There is also an article about the team in yesterday’s Japan Times.

Mobile apps vs mobile websites: Your four options

Paul Boag — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 12:30:00 +0000

There is a lot of confusion among organisations about how to deal with mobile. However, when it comes down to it you have 4 options.

Do you need an app in the app store? Should that be native or hybrid? What is the difference between a web app and a responsive website? The world of mobile can seem incredibly confusing.

We have posted in the past about your mobile choices and attempted to bring some clarity to your options. However, I thought it might be useful if I demonstrated your choices using 4 examples of work we have done at Headscape. Hopefully seeing real examples will make it clearer what options to use in what circumstances.

The options are:

Responsive Website.
Native Application.
Web Application.
Hybrid Application.

Responsive website

A responsive website is one that adapts to whatever device it is being viewed on. Whether that is a desktop computer, tablet or mobile device, the same website will display the same content using a visual design most suited to that device.

It is how Headscape build most of its websites these days.

Take for example Macmillian English. Like most of the sites we work on it is information rich. Users coming to the site are looking to find out information, rather than complete tasks. A responsive website ensures that they can find the same information whatever device they are using.

The Macmillian English website is a typical example of an information rich site that responds to multiple devices.

Responsive websites are good for…

Information rich websites.
Users that are looking to gather information.

If you are unsure what option you need then a responsive website is normally a good starting point.

Native Apps

Native apps are applications that run physically on the mobile device and are coded specifically for the operating system of that device. These are the applications you typically find in either the Google Play or iOS App Store.

This is the best approach where speed and native features are required.

For example Headscape worked with Buffer to design a proof of concept iPhone application.

Because the Buffer app needed access to device features and had to be lightning fast it made sense for it to be a native application.

Users interact with the Buffer app multiple times a day and need access to native features such as the camera roll. It therefore made sense for this to be a native application.

Web Application

A web application shares characteristics with both a native application and a responsive website.

As with a responsive website a web application is built using HTML, CSS and Javascript and lives entirely online.

However, where a responsive site is content orientated, a web application is task focused in much the same way as a native app.

A case in point is the Blackpool Pleasure Beach mobile app we built. The application is available online but is not a content rich website. Instead it is a booking application that allows users to buy their tickets and passes.

The Blackpool Pleasure Beach Booking Application was a perfect candidate for being a web based application.

Because it required constant communication with the server, wasn’t used regularly by users and needed no native features, there was no point of making it a native app.

Hybrid Application

A hybrid application is probably the hardest of the options to explain.

A hybrid application is essentially a native application built with HTML, CSS and Javascript. By building it with web technology it is quicker to develop and easier to publish to multiple platforms (e.g. iOS or Android). The downsides are that performance tends not to be as good and they lack the design style of each platform.

This butterfly counting app is a proof of concept built with HTML, CSS and Javascript, but running as a natively on the device.

An example of this kind of application is a proof of concept butterfly counting app developed by Headscape. This hybrid application was built in PhoneGap and allowed users to identify and count butterflies in the field even with no web connection.

We decided to build this as a hybrid app because it was a proof of concept and we wanted to produce it quickly and for minimal cost.

Which is right for you?

Each of the 4 options discussed in this post have their place. Which is most appropriate will vary based on your particular requirements. However, a good starting point is to ask whether users are primarily completing a task or accessing information.

A good starting point is to ask whether users are primarily completing a task or accessing information.

If it is the latter then responsive is almost certainly the way to go. If it is the former then you need to ask whether speed and access to native features are important.

If that is the case then you will need a native or hybrid application, otherwise a web application would be perfect.

If you are still confused I recommend watching my presentation on the different mobile solutions.