Your response to Schoolclosures.org.uk

Posted Wed, 11/02/2009 - 11:55 by Brian Hoadley

Thanks for your excellent comments and constructive feedback to the first - as it turned out, alpha - releases of the schoolclosures prototype. Roughly speaking they fell into three categories:

  1. Functionality (relatively easy to add with some changes already made);
  2. Access and reliability (is there a way to stop kids closing their school - some good innovative suggestions on this); and
  3. Data handling (inevitably challenging, given the way that closure decisions are actually made and communicated).

On Thursday Directgov’s main site launched a new “journey routing” service, based on the Local Directgov engine, to get users straight to the most relevant deep link on emergency school closures within their council’s website. This wasn’t meant to be a replacement for the prototype, but a quick way of offering a consistent way to access what information was being made available at a local authority level.

Another learning point:

Rumours of the existence of a prototype quickly led to users referring others to a new ‘live’ service.

So, given the snow was still falling - we temporarily withdrew the prototype and pointed instead to an explanatory blog post. You can find the live school closures look-up tool here http://is.gd/ivHc.

We’re now taking a step back, evaluating all of your feedback and are planning to add functionality enhancements on a new hosting arrangement (thank you for the feedback on the rough edges there!) and intend to bring it back imminently for further comment.

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The innovate site isn't a

by Brian Hoadley (not verified) - 11/02/2009 - 14:37

The innovate site isn't a beta - the Schoolclosures site was - and had BETA plastered around it. However, one of the learnings we've taken on board is the development of an "alpha" prototype toolkit which includes a "wireframe" style greyscale design with an explanation on the home page of its alpha prototype status.

Thanks for the feedback! - Brian

With regard to the prototype

by Doug (not verified) - 11/02/2009 - 12:40

With regard to the prototype being misinterpreted as a live system, I suggest better branding than 'innovate' . Why not have the url be labs.direct.gov.uk, and plaster "beta" all over the site. I know beta is a mis-used term (thanks GMail!) but it will certainly be clearer.

Great initiative btw, please keep innovating :)