HCI2005: The UK Home Office Public Website gets a Makeover

The UK Home Office decided to take 'a user-driven approach to information architecture that met user goals and satisfied the business needs of the department' when it embarked on a major redevelopment project to transform its public website. In doing so, it was tackling problems with the existing site known to include:
* Lack of consistent navigation
* Out-of-date or irrelevant content
* A structure based around internal organisational structures
* Obscure terminology and language.
How this was undertaken formed the basis of a case study presented at HCI2005, this year at Napier University in Edinburgh.

The speakers described how the Home Office set up a programme board with representatives from all the major units to oversee the project and sign off key milestones. 'This collaborative approach ensured that the Home Office had ownership of and was committed to the outcomes whilst utilizing the skill set of the combined team.' The team then appointed the Web Usability Partnership and Cognitive Applications to handle different elements of the redevelopment.

The first phase involved conducting user research and develop information architecture as a foundation for all future development.

There were six main areas of work:
- internal stakeholder research
- usability testing and analyses of the existing site
- user research
- determining scope and goals
- developing the information architecture
- developing and iterating prototypes.

'A wide range of stakeholders within the Home Office were involved throughout the process, from internal stakeholder research, where they were interviewed to establish their goals for the website, through the usability testing, user research and prototype testing, where they were engaged as observers and active participants in recording outcomes.

'Facilitated discussions immediately following research and testing sessions enabled Home Office staff to share their interpretations and gain greater understanding and insight than they would have achieved through written reports; this was the start of developing a user-centred culture within the wider department as these observers were then able to go back to their respective business areas and ‘spread the word’. The process also greatly helped achieve organisational buy-in to the site development ideas.'

A consensus was reached that users of the new site could best be supported by:
* Producing content relevant to users’ everyday lives, written in a style users understand.
* Including consistent and meaningful contextual linking
* Improving findability by offering better search facilities and develop systems for capturing and recording metadata
* Developing regular programme of analysis and maintenance to optimise current areas of the site and develop new ones.

This approach to user-centred design has now been extended into all subsequent phases of the website redevelopment and in total over 200 users have contributed to the development.

The speakers drew attention to several features of the process
* At all stages the user has been the pivotal benchmark for decision making.
* It's been a highly collaborative process between the Home Office and consultants
* Involving Home Office staff throughout the process has started to develop a broader awareness of user needs throughout the organisation and increased the general support for the project internally.

'By following a user-centred methodology which has involved substantial user research and staff involvement, a greatly improved web site information architecture has been developed which testing shows will be relevant to and can be used by a wide range of users, whilst meeting Home Office strategic requirements.'

The site has now launched and its URL is www.homeoffice.gov.uk.


The HCI2005 case study "User-centred Redesign of the Home Office Public Website" was the work of Mark Boardman and Emma Charles of the Home Office, Sarah Burton-Taylor of the Web Usability Partnership and Jason Ryan and Rachael Rainbow of Cognitive Applications.

Associated Link: Further details of the case study

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