bringing parliament to the people: building engagement in the democratic process
DESCRIPTION
This is a talk I gave at the June meetup of the Web Managers Group - webmanagersgroup.comTRANSCRIPT
Bringing Parliament To The People: Building Engagement In The
Democratic Process
Tracy GreenUK Parliament
Who am I?
Tracy GreenHead of Online Services UK Parliament
My name is: Tracy Green
I am from: London, UK
I work for: UK Parliament
My role is: Head of Online Services
My passion is: eDemocracy
I used to: manage websites for other large organisations
Hansard Society – Audit of Political Engagement 10
Where have all the voters gone? Only 41% likely to vote in the next election
Interest in politics low (42%) but interest in news and current affairs high (71%)
People do care about issues, especially locally – 78% prepared to act
What difference can we make?
Who are our customers?
Members The public
And what do we know about them?60% of traffic comes from Google
Top tasks are member information, Hansard and legislation
Top search tasks are MPs, Hansard, Committees
20% coming from mobile devices
Routes into Member information
Search65%
Referral21%
Direct14%
Members of the House of Lords How visitors arrive
Members of the House of Lordshttp://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords
And what do they say?
Perception of search on the website“With respect, the search engine is useless and needs to be built again scratch. One cannot limit the search parameters in
any meaningful way”
“search function was not helpful. no index, and word search did not produce anything useful”
“the general search facility did not seem to return results listed according to any format - alphabetical, chronological, logical...just a
shapeless bundle of information units”
Implications for overall perception of the site“I could not fine [sic] the specch [sic] i was looking. The advanced search was no help at all. The website is totally
useless.”
What does this mean for Parliament’s digital strategy?
Findability
Mapping users key tasksKey tasks (aggregated) mapped on to home page
Mapping users key tasksKey tasks (aggregated) mapped on to home page
Proposed new home pageDesigned around users key tasks
more space and flexibility to drive the communications agenda
Users have the ability to personalise the business content they see under ‘Today in Parliament’A more modular dynamic approach to content
Drop-down navigation (not shown) promotes content otherwise hidden down the site
Topics
Member pages
NewsOver 2 million unique page views of news content in past yearPeaks relate to phone hacking news stories
Traffic peaks every Wednesday around PMQs
Average time spent on a news story is 1 minute 43
News
News
Where people are
Social media
Partnerships
Mobile
Opportunities for engagement
Scrutiny
Scrutiny
Legislation
Debate
@greentrac
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tracy-green/2/175/753
Thanks for listening