These were:
- IEG Compliancy with W3C Standards (Level AA as specified by Priority Outcome G20)
- More user friendly with more predictable page layouts
- Achieve a place in the top 25% of the Sitemorse listings by improving the accessibility rating of the site, ensuring that errors were removed and best practice as is adopted by content authors (this was to be assessed by the sites position within the Local Government web rankings published by Sitemorse)
- Adoption by users as the path of least resistance for information publication
- Easier integration with existing council system to expedite the remaining items on the e-Government agenda
Upon deeper analysis, it was found that the site had a number of technical problems which would prove difficult to resolve with the existing deployment. It was therefore decided to find a new technical partner for their Content Management Project.
Enhanced MS CMS Platform
Adepteq (Microsoft Gold Partner) were selected from a shortlist because of their excellent track record implementing Microsoft CMS platforms within Local Government. Adepteq advised that they had been collaborating with the Gold Partner Community on a project called CMS Rapid which could both expedite the implementation of the new platform as well as reducing risk. CMS Rapid (as its name implies), is an open source project at Microsoft where top Gold Partners who have written CMS components for previous projects can submit them for inclusion in the CMS Rapid Framework.
Improved Accessibility
The latest accessibility tests run on the site using the Sitemorse analysis tool show that the Braintree CMS website now achieves a score of 8.2, ranking them in 10th place out of 460, a considerable improvement on their previous position of 446 even without reviewing the content. Whilst not totally objective, the Sitemorse tests do provide a good indication of the number of technical errors within a site.
Adepteq completed the project for a fixed cost which was considerably less than the original implementation and even included IPSV, the new taxonomy which replaced LGCL halfway through the project.
Braintree District Council is currently in the process of delivering many other services to the public electronically based upon the new web publishing platform.
To discuss this project in more detail or to find out how Adepteq can help make your own project a success fill in our online enquiry form, email us at info@adepteq.com or simply call (01296) 468 160.