Website design principles

Every few years we have to update our website to make sure it is accessible and easy to use for all our customers, including those using assistive technologies.

We recently held several website workshops with local residents, staff and councillors to help us to create a brief for our updated website that will ensure it is engaging, easy to use and supportive to all.

Thank you to everyone who came along – we are so grateful for your input, ideas and support. 

We have distilled the feedback we received into a brief for our website designers and hope we have captured all the key points from the sessions.

Our draft principles

Design

1. Clear use of council logo: Ensures users know which website they are visiting and promotes brand awareness.
2. Prominent space on the home page for the below (in order of importance):
   1. ‘All services’ navigation from home page, with fresh modern menu presentation: Provides quick access to service led menu navigation, so all users can reach the information they need within minimal clicks.
   2. Single form: www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/oneform
   3. Multiple campaign promotions: Enables promotion of multiple campaigns at any one time, driving user engagement.
   4. ‘About local decision making’ navigation from home page: Provides easy link to information about the council from the homepage – to include democracy, council meetings, council composition etc.
   5. Press releases: Provides prominent and dedicated area for important announcements or updates, keeping users informed.
   6. Other key items: Currently this will include my account, open consultations and ‘in my area’ (not yet developed).
3. Bold fresh colour palette: A new bold colour palette that features a strong backdrop colour and uses bold/primary colours to increase accessibility/colour contrast. Avoids political party pantones. 
4. Changeable secondary colour palette: Enables dynamic site colour changes to support different seasons and campaigns but retains user confidence by retaining primary colour palette.
5. Prominent announcement banner: Maintenance of current announcement banner, redesigned to reflect new site design to provide clear emergency messaging.
6. Flexible footer menu: Flexible footer menu.
7. Smaller home page icons/buttons that are clear and display prominently on mobile view: Improves user interaction by making homepage buttons easily identifiable and clickable.
8. Effective use of negative space: Enhances visual appeal and readability by balancing content and preventing visual clutter.
9. Enhanced search functionality: Will be delivered as part of a parallel project.
10. Attractive home page design for consultations: Drive up user engagement and involvement in key council consultations.

Accessibility

1. Designed to support latest accessibility standards and future proofed for future standards: Ensured the website design meets existing standards and supports all users of the site.
2. Serif-free fonts and no 'stacked a's - with little hats': Ensures readability and clarity for all users, especially on different screen sizes, improving overall user experience.
3. Responsive for mobile devices: Ensures the site functions smoothly and efficiently across different devices and platforms, given the majority of our traffic access our site on mobile devices.
4. Jargon free content: Will be delivered as part of a parallel content review workstream.

Other functionality

1. Events section/templates: Offers a dedicated area for event listings or updates, catering to users interested in such content.
2. Multi-site feature (Galaxies): Enables easy access to multiple interconnected sites or sections, improving overall user experience.

Give your views

Please let us know what you think of our draft principles by Friday 8 December at 5pm. 

We are keen to hear from everyone - whether you came to the workshops or not.

We've created a feedback form for you to give your views - fill in our feedback form.