Creating content on the new intranet website: how we got here and what’s next

We have existing content across the legacy intranets, which we are working towards decommissioning. Due to the ex county council intranet being end of contract and end of life at 31 October 2024, a lot of the new intranet's content hasn't been through that user centred design process yet and the ex county content has been preserved as-is so it is still available.

 This is work in progress and we will be constantly adding and updating content as and when ways of working and policies and procedures are harmonised into one Cumberland Council.

The next steps for content creation is to:

• work with the district areas to understand what can be harmonised
• establish a publishing process and content standards
• gather user feedback

Working with the district areas

The new intranet will include all the information from the district intranet websites, which means you’ll only have to look in one place for what you need.

This will be a big exercise to audit the existing content on each district website and identify the areas that are different. We’ll need to work closely with HR teams who have worked in district areas to understand the existing content.

Establish a publishing process and content standards

The Digital Team have established a publishing process for the public website that involves filling in a content request form and asking specific questions such as:

• What is the user need?
• Does the content have a shelf life?
• Does this content need to be in a document format?

The reason we ask these questions is to make sure that content on the website remains relevant to people’s needs and is created in an accessible way.

If you want to add content to the intranet

Please get in touch with the Digital Team to discuss the publishing process. You can do this by submitting a content request form.

To keep content relevant, we also must establish content owners for each page on the intranet. The content owner is responsible for letting the Digital Team know when the content is out of date, no longer relevant or if there’s new content on the way.

Creating accessible content

As a council, we have a responsibility to create content in the most accessible way for everyone to use - be it on the public website or the intranet.

The new website allows us to use different templates to display content in a user-friendly and accessible way. This means that we can convert documents into user-friendly web pages, this will allow:

• people with accessibility needs, such as sight impairments, to clearly read the content on the webpage as opposed to a document
• people to search for specific information on the website - as opposed to information being buried in a document that isn’t searchable via the websites search function
• teams to link directly to information instead of a large document
• teams to update their content easier without having to create a new document each time something changes

An example from the new intranet would be the ‘Guidance for managers and headteachers on how to fulfil a resourcing need’. This was a 15 page document, which we’ve now turned into a publication web page. Also the Relocation Assistance Scheme, previously a four page document, we’ve now tuned into an online guide.

Talk to us about accessibility

If your team creates a lot of documents that need to go on the intranet, talk to the Digital Team about how we can support you in creating accessible content for the website. You can do this by submitting a content request form

Gathering feedback

Feedback is essential for us to understand what is and isn’t working on the intranet.

You’ll see on the bottom of every page a little text box that says ‘ Help improve this site by giving feedback.’ Here you can rate the page and give feedback.

You can also give your ideas and feedback through the Cumberland Intranet Idea Hub.

We also have the ability to look at things like:

• page views
• broken links
• our accessibility score
• heat maps - this shows where people are clicking on a page