Public Sector Web Design

Information is one of the cornerstones of web design. Your digital marketing strategy is likely to be very much centered around brand awareness, providing information to the consumer and encouraging the consumer to engage with the company and the product, which will hopefully eventually result in a sale (let’s face it, we’re in business to make money!)

Public sector web design is a very different animal indeed. It’s also about providing information to an end user, but for a very different end result and notably different motivations. There is very little place for the usual marketing terms or often ‘glamorised’ sales copy used on many websites.

Most public sector websites have to fulfil a public service and often provide the public with very important information. Take the recent Swine Flu website, much maligned, but a vital public service nevertheless. If you extrapolate the advice to users of the site to base economics, then the conversion rate of product ‘sold’ (Tamiflu) is the envy of many corporates.

Of course the reason this site was set up was to try and combat the spread of a disease not to make money! However, I think it highlights the very serious consideration that has to be given to designing a website in the public sector, paying particular regard to how the information is presented. You are still trying to drive traffic to the site, and very high volumes at that, but not for the same reasons.

Many of the same cornerstones of all web design projects still hold true, W3C guidelines and the importance of the user journey for example. But most of these projects require careful and considerate handling of the public message. Many public sector organisations, and in particular the NHS, have had limited contact with digital agencies, mainly due to the majority of digital work and system development previously being carried out by in-house teams of developers. Reassuringly, these days most stakeholders in the public sector understand that as an information tool, the internet is key in helping to reach as broad an audience as they can.

Historically most NHS websites have been developed by very busy IT professionals, who are not designers, but predominantly programmers and have to work under strict user guidelines. Our job, as a digital agency, is to show that we understand the nature of the work and the message that needs to be conveyed. Public sector projects can be rewarding, complex, confusing and complicated all at once! But understanding the message and as a digital agency being sympathetic to the organisation’s needs, great things can be achieved, with some public sector organisations even taking a lead in terms of their approach to digital. Public sector web design really can be exciting stuff!



Paul Windust
Project Manager