News

The SDS blog

We provide support and guidance, external challenge, sharing good practice, industry knowledge and practical insights as well as being a valuable resource for councils on the next stage of their digital journey.

Accessibility

Join us for a Summer of Accessibility

Whether you’re new to digital accessibility or want to enhance your existing knowledge, there’s something for everyone in this series of four free 45 minute webinars being held every Wednesday in June.
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Training Understanding your users Website redesign

Is your website content meeting customers’ needs?

Teignbridge District Council are working hard to ensure their website content is meeting their customer’s needs. They asked SDS to help them by delivering training for management and content editors.
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Digital solutions Training

Moving from a shared network drive to SharePoint

The London Borough of Bexley are replacing their shared network drive with SharePoint. SDS helped to deliver training to prepare staff for the changes. Here are some of the things we liked about SharePoint.
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Research Understanding your users

Reducing avoidable contact in Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks District Council are seeing a sustained increase in calls. They asked SDS to help them understand the drivers for the calls and identify any avoidable contact.
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Accessibility Training

New digital accessibility e-learning course

Many local authorities in Kent, Sussex and Surrey are now accessing our new digital accessibility e-learning course. Here is some more information about the course. We hope this course will be helpful for you and your organisation too. 
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Accessibility

Join us for a Summer of Accessibility

Whether you are new to digital accessibility or looking for ways to further embed accessibility in your organisation’s culture and working practices, there’s something for everyone in this series of eight 45 minute webinars being held between May to July.
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Service design Website redesign

Are you maximising the use of your Intranet?

Never before has your intranet been so important for staff engagement with your organisation.
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Digital solutions Research Understanding your users

Councils are using Google Data Studio to Change How They Track Data

Sometimes it can be tricky to get valuable information about how your clients and customers use your services. This is information that would be helpful to see where they’re going and what they’re doing on your website, how they are...
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Accessibility Research

Is TikTok Paving the Way for Accessibility on the Internet?

TikTok might not be a platform that you would think of when it comes to accessibility, however, perhaps it should be.
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Research

How can we stop flexible hours becoming longer hours?

The pandemic shifted our ways of working. Many employees are now working remotely full time or “hybrid” working, where part of their time is spent remote and part in the office.
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Website redesign

Continue with remote user testing or return to face to face?

As the restrictions on where we work are lifting, lots of us are reflecting on the ways we used to work and how we will work in the future.
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Digital solutions Website redesign

Supporting Town and Parish councils to improve their digital accessibility

There are around 10,000 local parish, town, community, and neighbourhood councils in England. These work hard to provide services that meet the needs of their residents and improve community well-being.
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Accessibility Website redesign

Accessibility monitoring of public sector websites and mobile apps 2020-2021

The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) issued an accessibility monitoring report detailing the work they have undertaken in 2021 testing public sector websites.
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Digital solutions Service design

Process Capture for Customer Services Team

Many changes have taken place over the last few years and so the aim of this project is to explore whether current processes are still fit for purpose, whether they can be digitised or indeed whether they are still needed.
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Digital solutions

A new support website created for Kent landlords

Kent Housing Group recently won a bid from Kent County Council to support landlords who are suffering rent arrears problems that have built up as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Accessibility Digital solutions Understanding your users

Testing forms for usability and accessibility

Both Waverley Borough Council and Tandridge District Council required some user testing on their waste forms. Whilst the more common usability testing was carried out, checking for functionality and looking at the technical aspects, SDS also user tested for digital...
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Accessibility Digital solutions

Giving digital accessibility a boost

Many of our partner organisations have been working hard to create a culture of accessibility throughout their organisations. Sevenoaks, Central Bedfordshire and Tonbridge and Malling have all asked us to help with this by delivering several virtual, live and interactive...
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Training

Introduction to Agile

SDS have been delivering live and interactive training courses to Project Managers across Ashford Borough Council introducing them to agile ways of working.
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Service design

East Sussex Building Control Process Review

SDS have reviewed the East Sussex Building Control Partnership’s business processes, to explore ways to enhance customer experience and improve efficiency.
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Understanding your users Website redesign

The importance of user testing when redesigning your website

Waverley Borough Council approached Smarter Digital Services (SDS) to assist them with conducting user testing on their new website.
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