We needed to fix the pain points for different audiences, as well as providing a scalable website platform
We worked with the National Audit Office (NAO) to design and build a new website that works better for users and staff
The NAO publishes information to help the public understand how government money is being spent and how public services are performing.
Research had shown that users found their existing website hard to read and struggled to find content that was relevant to them. Some parts of the website were not fully accessible and didn’t work well on mobile devices.
This was making it harder than it should be for people to access NAO reports, as it carries out its role as the UK’s independent spending watchdog.
Outcome
We worked with the NAO to design and develop a new, scalable website with an improved search and user experience making information more accessible for users, and a familiar content management system that staff can use confidently.
“The website rebuild has significantly improved the browsing experience for users accessing content, with the functionality optimised for mobile devices.“
Dan Gluckman, Senior Digital Communications Manager, NAO
What we did
The NAO holds thousands of historic records and reports. We knew that users had to be able to easily search for, find and identify content. We needed to fix the pain points for a variety of different audiences, as well as providing the NAO with a scalable website platform.
Getting content and content management right
Given that staff were already familiar with WordPress, GovPress – dxw’s secure, scalable WordPress hosting platform – was the ideal content management solution.
We needed to organise content in a way that made sense to users and was easy for staff to manage. We reviewed NAO’s existing content types finding ways to narrow these down, define and prioritise them. Deleting anything that was duplicated or out-of-date. A lot of work went into figuring out how best to sort and categorise a significant volume of content in a way that would help users navigate the site.
Designing a search function that helps users find what they need
The NAO had been using multi-sites, so we consolidated these into a single site to make it easier for staff to manage and maintain the content. We then streamlined the search function and added filtering capabilities to help users find what they need.
The improved search and new approaches to content management, tagging and navigation provide a much better and more consistent user experience. The NAO now has a scalable and efficient platform to share its insights, reports and ongoing work as it holds government to account.