Transforming public services to businesses in Scotland
In November 2007, when I was part of what was then the SE web team, we were asked if we could take on a project.
The objective was to completely re-design and rewrite the SE website. Some of you may remember what it looked like back then. Including an incredible floating woman. Stock photography. It’s why we banned it.
Oh. And it had to be ready by 1 April 2008. SE would have a new remit by then. Would that be OK?
Continue reading “Design content first … who would have thought of that?”
There’s been a lot of talk about ‘digital first’ recently. But precious little about what that actually means.
So here’s my take on it. Very much off the top of my head.
My mother-in-law has cancer.
It’s been painful, these last few months, watching a woman who was skiing in the Alps at Easter hobbling around on a crutch this summer. Though not a fraction as painful as it has been for her.
The disease has entered her bones, causing them to become so fragile that she has fractured her pelvis. Which is where the crutch comes in.
Fortunately, her prognosis is good. Radiotherapy, not chemo, was prescribed. Bones can recover, and injections speed the healing process. Her health improves daily. Continue reading “Why accessibility matters”
Simply put, MyBusinessID is the Scottish shared account for accessing public sector business websites.
Continue reading “MyBusinessID – Business Account for Scotland”
As part of setting up any website there are a number of policies, laws strategies etc… that we need to follow. The key ones are detailed below. In the coming weeks a series of posts will outline what is involved in any new Digital initiative.
In August 2012 we produced a report to share our findings with partner agencies. This was to show them common issues and also set a baseline for acceptable usability.
At the same time we also collated observations from Neilson’s usability week lectures that several staff members attended.
Well 4 quick years have passed and it is again time to procure a wed/digital analytics package. We need an analytics package to measure all our online stuff, in order to be able to manage it. Otherwise we are just guessing.
Continue reading “Procurement time for a new Analytics package”
You see, Apple’s newest tablet, the iPad Mini, creates a vexing situation: Its
device-widthviewport tag defaults to the same values as Apple’s original iPad (768×1024 pixels), even though the Mini’s screen is physically 40 percent smaller. That means every button, graphic, link, and line of text on a web page on the iPad Mini appears tiny—even when we try to do the right thing and build flexible, multi-device experiences.
The question?
What would your response be if a colleague told you, they were going to China for a week on business, and then asked for a loan of your phone.
For me it would fall into 2 camps:
Why the unkind response?
The simple reason for this rather unkind response is that most of us eat sleep and breath our phones. They have become integral to most of our daily activities and they also store a lot of personal data on them. I would probably loan you my car rather than hand over my phone.
I have probably used north of 20 mindmap packages across various operating systems in recent years. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and none are perfect.
My ultimate choice was to use Mindomo. It does everything I need it to and works well across all platforms that I use.
Here is why I chose it:
My choice for the ipad filtered down to 3 packages
The next challenge is to get form based data capture up and running for the all staff event on Wednesday next week. It is currently Saturday. No pressure then.
I have looked at lots of form applications but most of them seem overly involved and want to tie you into server based subscriptions. Continue reading “Forms Forms Forms”
The long wait begins whilst the IPad charges for the first time.
I set up a new iTunes account using work email address. This needs a credit card to complete. Using personal one at present. Now to load up basic apps for adding business functionality.