Design

Using Government Digital Service guidelines

We used the recently-launched GDS design library for the design of our user interface. This library of components has been extensively tested for usability and accessibility and therefore can be placed in design templates with confidence. Importantly, these components are already HTML-coded and this means that pages can be rendered extremely quickly. The library does not have a full suite of components and is inviting the community to expand it. Any component or need that is not covered by GDS has been developed by us and is continually being tested to see what works with users.

GDS examples include:

• Tables
• Buttons
• Error summary

Non-GDS examples we have devised include:

• Message preview - we have found that a preview visually differentiates message content from normal page body text.
• Add a note - this widget is not easy to locate. We are therefore working on improvements to move it to a visually more active area of the screen.
• Symbols in tables - contextual help means that these symbols are identified correctly.
• Displaying balance - we know from testing that using ust colour to differentiate between arrears and credit is not enough to be accurately read. We will test use of the '-' symbol to support this visually.

Branding

We have followed recommended Hackney brand guidelines where appropriate, examples are below:

(Internal only - http://staffroom.hackney.gov.uk/hackney_council_brand_guidelines__nov_2011_web_sml_.pdf)

• Typography = Arial
• Colour = Primary Green (PMS 336)

Accessibility

The site has had checks using a web accessibility tool (Siteimprove) to improve accessibility for less-abled agents. The W3C standard from the Web Accessibility Initiative that we are aiming to comply with is AA. GDS components have already been tested for accessibility.

Initial tests on the development test site have not highlighted anything of great concern. Issues that have been flagged include the lack of bypass blocks on the home page (which is referring to being able to tab through the 'Last 10 calls' section) and an un-tagged graphic (which is a placeholder). We will repeat accessibility testing with our live MVP service.