We've always had good feedback on the quality and usefulness of the outputs we produce. We also had feedback that it was difficult to find that content on our old website. So we’ve changed the website to make it easier for people to find and use our information.
Making it easier to find information
The main focus of the new website has been to make it easier for our users to find the content they are looking for.
The latest headline statistics are now available at a glance. You can browse by the type of content you want or by the topic you’re interested in. We’ve also improved how the search works, plus you can filter and sort search returns to pinpoint what you need.
We've also followed common web conventions and best practice. This means our website should look and work as people expect it to, making it quicker and easier to use.
Making it easier to use information
It's also important that we provide our outputs in a way which it easy for people to use our information. Much of the content from our old website is in PDF files, which are good for printing out and reading, but not so good if you want to analyse the data or reuse the charts.
New content on the website will be in formats that make it easier to take our data and do something with it. Data tables in publications will be downloadable as spreadsheets and CSV files. Data used in charts and graphs can be downloaded as well as the charts and graphs themselves.
Improving accessibility
We don't all access a website in the same way. Some people use screen reader software to read the content out to them, whilst some need to make the content larger if they have sight problems, others have particular requirements relating to dyslexia or colour blindness. Our previous website didn't make it easy for users with particular needs to access all of our content.
We are committed to ensuring the new website is accessible to the widest range of people possible, and have followed web standards relating to accessibility. More help and information relating to accessibility.
Making sure releases happen on time
We've not only been working on a new website. We've also redeveloped our publishing systems and the systems that are used to host the website. With our previous systems, on some days our releases could take a little while to appear on the website. With the new systems, our content will be published promptly.
