Background
Optima Digital Solutions was appointed to redesign the council’s govService customer and staff facing portals to match their new corporate website and intranet.
In September 2023, Sandwell launched a new corporate website using the Jadu platform and are currently in the process of creating a new corporate intranet for staff members.
The newly designed sites differ from the existing customer and staff portals (self and dash) used on the govService platform. Sandwell wanted the experience between these sites to be consistent for residents and staff alike.
The team at Sandwell reached out to us after they utilised our free staff portal designs that are available for any authority using the govService platform. They wanted to build on this design for their internal portal but also required our expertise to redevelop their customer account portal.
Our brief
We were asked to assist with the design, development and deployment of the new portals. Sandwell requested that we:
- Review the new corporate site to see what can be mirrored to the portals, working around the limitations within the govService platform.
- Investigate what existing functionality we could retain from the existing MySandwell portal, but with updating styling.
- Provide examples of other portal redesigns we have completed with other authorities to decide on a suitable account layout.
- Create an intuitive, easy to use and helpful account portal that all residents can use.
- Test, develop and deploy all work within a limited timeframe.
What we achieved
- We delivered the updated designs within 1 week from project kick off, allowing the council to quickly approve deployment of the new account portal.
- We completed deployment of the new designs after an internal review 4 weeks after the project kick off.
- Mirrored the existing header and search functionality from the main corporate website along with fonts, colours, look and feel, footers and more. This provides residents with a seamless experience when navigating between sites.
- Retained existing functionality developed by Granicus to display individual resident waste collection and local councillor information.
- Restyled the mains forms UI for a more consistent experience, fixing some inconsistencies in the default forms UI and adding re-usable CSS for the development team to use across new and existing forms.
- Created a portal that works across desktop and mobile devices, with specific optimisations for both device types.
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council on Optima Digital Solutions
We have had a fantastic experience working with Optima. From using their online form for scheduling a catch up, to deployment of our restyled customer portal out to a happy customer base – those involved have been efficient, knowledgeable, and worked diligently but at pace throughout.
The final product exceeded our expectations and was realised by a clear wealth of knowledge and experience of the potential for styling the govService platform. It has made significant contribution in realising our ambitions for the experience of our digital customers.