Web Access Centre

CSCI - Case study - Web Access Centre

Summary: Learn more about how the Commission for Social Care Inspection worked with the design agency Webcredible and RNIB to build in accessibility to the CSCI site.

• Introduction
• Aims of CSCI Professional
• Testing and more testing
• CSCI Professional’s users
• Usability and accessibility challenges
• Seal of approval
• Ongoing improvements
• Case studies

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Introduction

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) is the inspectorate for adult social care in England. They aim to put people who use social care services at the heart of all their work.

CSCI provides a complete picture of care from the initial point of assessment through to the planning and delivery of services that people receive.

In April 2006 when they relaunched their award-running main website, people who use services were involved throughout the development of the site.

A year later in April 2007, they launched a separate site for social care professionals – in particular social care providers and councils - and again, usability and accessibility drove the project from the beginning.

Working collaboratively with social care providers and councils to ensure they deliver the best possible service for people who use social care services is an integral part of all CSCI’s work.

Aims of CSCI Professional

CSCI wanted the site to:

• Act as a one stop shop for social care professionals
• Help CSCI communicate directly with providers and councils
• Provide guidance and best practice on how to run a care service
• Help drive improvement in the social care sector
• Enable users to receive instant email alerts to their inbox

Testing and more testing

CSCI’s web team spent five months working with usability specialists Webcredible, who ran focus groups, online surveys and the testing of the care professional section on the main CSCI site. This section of the main site would form the basis of CSCI Professional.

CSCI Professional’s users

Working with Webcredible, the web team recruited a wide range of care providers – including those who managed a number of care homes and those who managed individual care homes. They also recruited people from councils whose job was to commission out care services for people in their community.

Testers took part in focus groups and told CSCI how a website could help them run their service or commission care services.

A big focus for almost everyone was consistency and transparency – they wanted to be sure that care services were all regulated and inspected in a consistent manner and that CSCI was able to provide easy to access policies and guidance on how they did this.

Users also took part in card sorting sessions which helped to create the navigation of the site and completed tasks on the main site which identified problems area on the site.

Usability and accessibility challenges

One of the most challenging aspects of the project was translating the wireframes provided by Webcredible into a living, breathing website. The wireframes were highly usable in that they put all the key topics on how to run a care service directly on all the key landing pages.

The challenge then, for the web team was how to integrate the large amount of content across the site and how to work with the design company – Reading Room – to come up with a look and feel that was usable but also reflected CSCI’s brand and was distinct from the main CSCI site.

CSCI worked with Webcredible and part of their brief was to build highly accessible templates.

Webcredible then worked closely with Reading Room during the graphic design of the site and the integration of the templates to ensure that the site was AA compliant and that it met RNIB requirements for their See it Right logo.

Seal of approval

The social care sector is notoriously jargon-heavy and so it was important that all the content on CSCI Professional was succinct and easy to understand without losing any of the important detail.

The Plain English Campaign gave the site their Internet Crystal Mark and said:

"The new website is of an exceptional standard in terms of usability and language.

"It is a very useful information resource for social care professionals, with a comprehensive selection of documents, statistics and reports. We have no hesitation in awarding this site the Internet Crystal Mark."

Comments from care professionals have been equally positive:

"I found the website easy to use and very informative. Having such easy access to CSCI information and reports makes my job much easier" (Care manager)

"Your website is fantastic! Really clear, easy to use and totally accessible" (Provider)

Ongoing improvements

CSCI’s web team will continue to test the site over the next year. Their guiding principle is that usability and accessibility testing is an ongoing project and that as CSCI changes and new media changes, then so will the site.

As the latest version of W3C guidelines demonstrates, making sites accessible will be less and less about box ticking and more about interpreting the guidelines to make sites work for everyone.

CSCI’s web team will continue to test the site so that it helps social care professionals to work with CSCI to improve social care.

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Content author: webaccess@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 20/11/2008 11:13