The SDS blog

The SDS team have been working with the Local Government Association (LGA) in order to deliver six workshops (ranging from user research and user testing to developing a comms plan) to benefit five of their partners who have received funding...

SDS were asked by three partner authorities in Cambridge (Cambridge City Council, South Cambs District Council and Hungtindonshire District Council) to test the most used web pages and forms on their websites to explore how users interact with the website...

In order to improve communications with residents and reduce avoidable contact, SDS were asked by Tandridge District Council to usability test 6 of their existing revenues and benefits letters with users. During the usability test, SDS suggested an alternative for...

In October, SDS conducted a day of user testing at Sevenoaks District Council, exploring residents’ views of their website and My account function. This involved residents attempting to complete various scenarios leading them to either set up an account or...

The Local Government Association (LGA) have published a case study of work Smarter Digital Services undertook for Kent Homechoice to deliver the online housing pre-assessment form, full application form and homelessness triage tool.

Tandridge District Council (TDC) invited Smarter Digital Services to deliver a series of Focus Groups with residents to capture the voice of the customer and gain a better understanding of customers priority needs when contacting, interacting and transacting digitally with...

The homelessness triage tool has been updated to comply with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, and is now being used by all local authorities in Kent.

After attending our Behaviour Change workshop in May, Maidstone Borough Council put what they had learnt into practice by redesigning their Household Enquiry Form cover letter. SDS were asked to deliver user testing with 7 residents to review the letter...

SDS have been using a range of tools to assist Tunbridge Wells Borough Council with their website redesign project. Starting with a first click analysis, followed by a card sort analysis and finally a tree sort analysis. These tools helped...

Smarter Digital Services have been working with Folkestone & Hythe District Council to identify the customer demand broadly across all services, but specifically within Council Tax.

On the 13th February, we facilitated a workshop with Ashford customer services and housing options officers to agree and map out the required process that will meet both user needs and the needs of the new Homelessness Reduction Act legislation...

At the beginning of January, Dom delivered a series of five training workshops for customer services staff in Swale, outlining the need to shift the way we provide services and interact with our customers, encouraging self-service wherever possible.

To start the year off, we invited our partners to a user testing workshop in Ashford where we explained and had a go at doing a user test, covering everything from recruiting people to take part, designing the scenarios to...

At the end of November we conducted 10 user tests for Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, exploring residents' views of their website and the My Account function.

Catherine Bright, Smarter Digital Services (SDS) manager, explains how a partnership of 12 councils across Kent and Surrey are jointly funding a responsive, independent, not-for-profit consultancy to help them to achieve their digital ambitions.

Cambridge contacted SDS to use the team’s expertise to conduct a series of user tests on a selection of their online citizen self-service web forms. Cambridge wanted to explore the customer experience of transacting with the council via the self-service...

In July we held the first of our Really Useful Workshops at Swale House which was attended by collegues from several of our partners. This first session - User Research at the Discovery Phase - demonstrated how important it is to speak...

We attended the LGA Annual Conference in Birmingham and gave a presentation in the Innovation Zone about the services we offer to local authorities.

We are very pleased to announce the launch of the Tandridge District Council website on 3rd July after only 3 months in the making! In March, we were commissioned by Tandridge to assist in scoping out their new website redesign. The...