At Essex County Council, we now have several websites on the LocalGov Drupal (LGD) platform.
These websites are managed by editors from within their respective services. Some have managed web content before, for others this is a new responsibility.
We’re likely to move more websites to LGD soon, so we interviewed these editors to find out what worked for them and what they wish they’d known, to learn for the future.
We spoke to:
- Clare Graves, who manages the SEND Local Offer website
- Stephen Atkinson, who manages the Love Essex website. This uses the LGD microsites platform
- Jack Pigram, who creates content on Love Essex
- Clare Ovenden, who manages the Essex Schools Infolink website
What’s it like adopting LGD for your team's website?
Stephen Atkinson, Love Essex: “There was so much problem solving. The out-of-the-box product wasn't working the way everyone anticipated it would, some components worked, some didn't. It was great to explore what microsites could do, what they can’t do.”
Jack Pigram, Love Essex: “Generally positive, once I'd been trained in how to use the CMS and how our custom recycling search works.”
Clare Graves, SEND Local Offer: “Easy and user friendly. I didn’t need extensive technical knowledge to create, edit or publish new content. It’s something I've then been able to share. I felt comfortable training other colleagues who don't have an IT background.”
Clare Ovenden, Essex Schools Infolink: “It's been a steep learning curve. Mainly because it was difficult to manage the (previous) website, because it was on an old SharePoint. The biggest issue has been capacity. Having time to take all this new stuff on board. We’ve got some training material, but it's not comprehensive. We're learning on the job, really.”
What has worked well for you?
Clare Ovenden, Essex Schools Infolink: “The platform is much easier to use than SharePoint. We’re able to display the information in a more clear and concise way. Schools have reacted positively to it. It’s easier to keep up to date.”
Stephen Atkinson, Love Essex: “On the whole, it's great. Simple to use. It was exciting to be that guinea pig, learning and then be able to share that knowledge with other teams and within the team.”
Jack Pigram, Love Essex: “I find it pretty intuitive building a web page. Fairly straightforward. On the front-end page design, it’s easy entry.”
Clare Graves, SEND Local Offer: “It's customisable. We've been able to make it our own. It's not just ‘here you go, off you go’, you have to make it work for you.”
What has been challenging?
Stephen Atkinson, Love Essex: “There are some frustrations. You might have a long content page, and to save a minor change that you've done at the top, we've got a scroll to the bottom to click save. That's frustrating. The preview button not working properly.”
Jack Pigram, Love Essex: “Occasionally you'll get things that just don't work as they should. We have a lot of directory venues and search items that need linking up with a recycling centre. That can get quite overwhelming at. But I learned what to do from my colleague, it’s not insurmountable.”
Clare Ovenden, Essex Schools Infolink: “Being an early adopter, you are feeling your way through both learning a new system and creating new processes for content management with your service teams. The biggest challenge is not knowing what you don’t know, and what features are available or could be useful.”
Clare Graves, SEND Local Offer: “Managing other people's expectations. Some people just want it to be flashy and pretty and that's their main goal, but when you look at the user needs it doesn't align. There might be a nice new feature, but it's a bit clunky and it needs some dev work doing to it.”
If you could add one new feature to LocalGov Drupal, what would it be?
Clare Graves, SEND Local Offer: “Something to guide a user who doesn't know what they need. You come to our website because you're in crisis and you need help, and you don't know what to do. Something where you could ask questions and help narrow down?”
Clare Ovenden, Essex Schools Infolink: “Something to help guide users to find what they want. Maybe that’s AI, or I still don't know whether our search is optimised really. I think we need to install the synonym search.”
Stephen Atkinson, Love Essex: “One thing that would really make the difference to us would be drop down menus. We’d have to rethink a lot of the way our site is laid out architecturally, which would mean a big card sorting exercise. But it would give us more navigation options.”
Jack Pigram, Love Essex: “Make it so that people don't have to set cookies to watch a video. Like a native video system within the local site? Or, improved maps where you can put more information about waste centres.”
What's useful for other new users to know and understand about using LGD?
Clare Ovenden, Essex Schools Infolink: “Give yourself a time and space to learn. It's a lot to take on board, be prepared for that. For us that’s not necessarily the platform, it's more to do with content management.”
Stephen Atkinson, Love Essex: “When we started, we didn’t have templates, documentation, or training. Make it simple for content editors to use. Give them examples of LocalGov Drupal sites. Tell them which components work, and if components don't work.”
Jack Pigram, Love Essex: “I learned quickly by designing a few web pages, mocking them up and sending them to Stephen. Then it was ‘actually you’ve got to stick within these parameters’. It might be good to have a clear set of instructions before starting.”
Clare Graves, SEND Local Offer: “Start with user research to guide you. You could easily get carried away with ‘oh, this would be nice’. But if it's not going to make a huge difference to your user, there's no point in developing it.”
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