The Isle of Wight Council has finally launched the first part of its new £765,000 website – albeit 20 months later than first anticipated.
The site, https://beta.iow.gov.uk/, described as an ‘enormous beast’, has part-launched in BETA format, which means it is being tested and Islanders can comment on the user experience.
Nearly 35,000 documents and pages are in the process of being updated and moved across to the new website, which aims to make things more accessible and simpler to understand.
It has had to be rebuilt to meet the needs of both visitors and the local authority, and to meet requirements for accessibility. New features include prominent buttons to access the most-used services and features, as well as a better search bar that will be more likely to find what you are looking for.
What is hoped to be more engaging and interactive content has been added, including videos (explaining some of the council’s services) and maps (showing all the council’s car parks).
The website’s new design makes it mobile-friendly, fitting to the size of the screen you are looking at it from.
Other areas of the council’s services need to be transferred and it is hoped a chat function will be installed to help users.
The original beta site launch had been planned for September 2020 and the Island’s councillors saw it in April, but a public launch was delayed ‘due to issues out of the project’s control,’ and COVID-19 has also caused hold-ups.
The authority is looking for feedback on the beta site and a form can be found at www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/IWCbeta2022
“Other areas of the council’s services need to be transferred and it is hoped a chat function will be installed to help users”.
Will the hoped for chat function in reality be an auto-bot version of the current main switchboard who answer incoming calls as if you are actually talking to the Department you want, whilst the actual people supposedly responsible for doing the work avoid taking calls from the public?
With this all singing all dancing over inflated priced computer from our money , does that mean they will clear out some of the dead wood and actually save money ??????
I e Us the poor cash cow’s money!!!!
Ps no one mention the floating bridge !!!!!!!
YUP! With all that is going on with families struggling to eat and pay fuel bills what better time to crow about spending £760,000 of our money to make zero savings in jobs and will in fact require even more staff to run the damned thing. Get a grip Council… Get us our £150 from HMG and get your house in order.
got mine just got to find the other £3200 now….cheers country
Apparently it is the low paid, pensioners and the poor who will be paid last. According to the BBC, Standing order payers will get their money by the end of May whilst the rest of us will just have to wait for some reason.
Oh thats what my taxes are for then….