The weather was feeling very autumnal this week (particularly for James who has just come back from a fortnight’s holiday in sunnier climes).

Flood warnings user research

James and Lucinda met with members of the Flood Warning Information Service for Wales project team on Monday to plan user research about the new service.

The new service for sending flood messages went live in July 2024.

We want to take this opportunity to find out whether we can improve the new service now that it’s been tested in live flood events:

  • Are the options clear and unambiguous?
  • Are there any redundant tasks when sending a warning message?
  • Have we removed any useful functionality from the previous service?

James has been set-up with a dummy account to see the same screens that flood officers view when sending a warning message. He will work through these screens to come up with a series of interview questions for the flood officers.

User research workshop about species licensing

James held a workshop on Wednesday to speak to the expert internal group that consults on species licence applications. This is the third workshop: we’ve already spoken to the Species Licensing Team and the Customer Hub.

Species licensing is the first area that we’re looking at as part of a wider project to make it easier for our users to apply for the right permits and operate legally.

The session captured the team’s views about:

  • Main user groups
  • Most common types of species licences
  • Tasks connected to applying for a licence
  • Common questions from users to the team
  • What users find difficult when applying for a licence
  • Ways to improve the application process

James sent out invitations for user interviews this week.

We’ll use the insights from these workshops to inform our discussion guide for these interviews.

Improving our farming content

James and Shaun met with Catherine Hancock this week to help improve the farming content on our website.

Catherine is still working through a draft list of around 60 user needs for farming web content that Shaun created.

Some of the issues that Catherine pointed out were:

  • We have guidance about areas that we’re not responsible for
  • Content not linked together, i.e. it’s on our website somewhere but it isn’t linked from the Farming section
  • We need more guidance to help farmers know what to expect during NRW farm inspections

WCAG 2.2

With the WCAG 2.1 standards being enforced from September 2021, WCAG had published an update, in October 2023, WCAG 2.2 as a “W3C Recommendation”. Now, GDS (Government Digital Service) will start monitoring for the extra criteria. The minimum requirement for public sector is still to achieve a minimum of AA.

The extra criteria are as follows:

  • 2.4.11 Focus Not Obscured (Minimum) (AA)
  • 2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced) (AAA)
  • 2.4.13 Focus Appearance (AAA)
  • 2.5.7 Dragging Movements (AA)
  • 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) (AA)
  • 3.2.6 Consistent Help (A)
  • 3.3.7 Redundant Entry (A)
  • 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum) (AA)
  • 3.3.9 Accessible Authentication (Enhanced) (AAA)

Along with the removal of 4.1.1 Parsing, as it now obsolete and has been removed from WCAG 2.2.

With WCAG 3 currently in draft, it is important that we are all checking the current standards and for any upcoming changes. Fortunately, from reviewing the new criteria, we don’t need to do any further work for the NRW website.

The importance of summary information and good page titles

This week Shaun completed an audit of all the water quality website content and met with representatives from the protected rivers and water quality teams to discuss how, in light of the findings from the audit, we might best deal with upcoming Water Framework Directive and river SAC reports.

The audit highlighted the fact that our water quality information is split over three main sections of the website and in general has very low views. Where the report is provided as an attachment, only between ten and thirty per cent of users actually downloaded the report.

This leads us to believe the majority of users are looking for a summary rather than the full report, so we’ll be ensuring the web-page holding the report contains an overview of the findings.

One other noteworthy aspect of the audit was the fact that when we title the page using wording we anticipate users might search for e.g. ‘Water quality of rivers in Wales’, rather than how we would internally name it e.g. ‘Compliance Assessment of Welsh rivers against pollution targets’, we multiply the number of views by a factor of between three and four.

Whilst it’s unsurprising that aligning a page title with what we think users are searching for results in greater views, the scale of the increase was remarkable.

Publishing new reports

Despite a busy week on the inbox, our publishing officers Sophie and Kim have published a number of reports and public notices to the website. They’ve also published content updates across our intranet.

We rely on subject matter experts and general feedback to help us identify out of date links and information, so if you spot something that needs updating, please let us know using our content request form.

Draft team priorities

Heledd shared draft priorities for our team for comment.

The purpose of the priorities is to:

  • Help our team identify what we prioritise and what don’t
  • Help us communicate our prioritise with colleagues in other departments
  • Raise the profile of what we prioritise (and what we don’t) at Business Boards and other places where decisions get made about digital

Last chance to get GovCamp Cymru 2024 tickets

Today is your final chance to grab a ticket for GovCamp Cymru 2024!

The last batch of tickets are released at 12pm Friday 4 October.

Get your tickets

GovCamp Cymru relies on volunteers and they’re looking for a few more people to help make the event a success.

More information about volunteering at the event

Gov Camp Cymru will be held:

  • 8 November 2024
  • 9:30am - 4:00pm
  • Pierhead Building, Cardiff, CF10 4PZ

Other things we’ve been working on this week

  • Sophie investigated the search functionality on our site to make sure users are seeing the right information. The search function will be updated following the Umbraco update (date to be confirmed) and will require another review to ensure we are seeing the right information.
  • Shaun published updated guidance about ‘Registering your septic tank’. He’s also been working on a new form for surrendering a permit for disposing of waste sheep dip and the associated website guidance.

Fun Spooky fact

Based on a ride that created a franchise, the Pirate of the Caribbean ride has always attracted visitors to enjoy. However, this ride does have a dark past.

When the ride opened in 1967, the imagineers used real human bones from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) anatomy department. The bones were placed throughout the ride, but the wardrobe department didn’t want to create life-like skeletons.

When sculpting technology improved, the remains were returned to their countries of origin and replaced with skeletal models created by the imagineers. Disney claims that no real skeletons remain in the ride. However, some former park employees and Disney enthusiasts insist that there are still at least four real skeletons in the ride.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride is considered one of the most immersive theme park attractions ever created. Walt Disney originally designed the ride in the 1950s as a walk-through adventure and wax museum.