The new North Ayrshire Council website has been reviewed and re-developed and a ‘beta version’ will be available from Monday, July 1.
The site has been built based on collaboration with colleagues and feedback gathered from across all North Ayrshire localities, speaking to over 600 people.
In addition, IT Services have received over 850 digital survey results. 86% of feedback provided said ‘finding information’ was key when using the website. The search functionality has therefore been improved, hopefully making it easier to find content on pages, including news and documents.
There is now a menu within the Header available on every page, allowing easy access to key online services and information from anywhere on the site.
Our new top task feature on the homepage now provides quick access to user’s most frequently used tasks. This feature will be updated based on service needs and data on the most used tasks.
To help reduce the amount of content displayed on pages, an accordion feature has been introduced, in simple terms a ‘show and hide’. This puts the reader in control of choosing content that is most relevant to their needs.
News articles have been styled with a magazine feel. There is now a share button, allowing for sharing of news across social media to colleagues, family and friends and a filter feature, which helps people find news articles relevant to their local community and which relate to our Council Plan priorities.
During this ‘beta testing’ phase you can have your say on our new features and provide feedback on the new website. Watch the sneak peek video introducing the new website which highlights these. Feedback can be provided through an online survey or by scanning the QR code embedded in the video.
In ‘testing phase’, IT Services will continue to test the ‘beta site’ across all areas of the community, as well as with colleagues, third parties and businesses.
The ‘beta site’ will be available throughout the summer with a Go Live of the new website in September. Information and ‘sneak peek videos’ will be promoted council wide via Staff News and News in Brief and colleagues will be encouraged to share their views.
As a reminder, all staff must comply with the Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile Applications) (no. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and therefore everything published will be required to meet these regulations.
Please review your documents, once these are edited to an accessible version, please request changes on the IT portal for updates to be made. Accessibility support can be found on the Connects Digital Accessibility webpage.
Share your feedback on the new Council website:
View the ‘beta’ version of the new Council website here then, if you have any feedback you wish to share, do so via the online survey.
Watch the video in this article for an overview or view the recap video on Connects here.
Remember – it is our duty to ensure that all documents we create meet the latest accessibility guidelines. Get more information and helpful tips on the Digital Accessibility webpage on Connects.