We made it, folks! The end of January is here – for some it’s felt like the month has gone by in a flash, while for others it’s dragged like an endless winter. Either way, hopefully February will bring us some more spring-like weather soon.

We still have a lot of work happening behind the scenes, so this is another short and sweet edition of weeknotes. Enjoy!

Using groups to make a page clearer

Toyah has been working on simplifying the main marine licensing page on the website.

image showing the old marine page

Currently this page exists as a wall of links, with users left to guess which are relevant to them, what order they should view them in, and so on. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle, but one you don’t have the box for so can’t perceive the whole picture.

Other areas of our site that also suffered from this issue have been set up to provide clarity by grouping links into categories.

image showing the waste page

Just by adding group headings, it makes it easier for people visiting the page to see where they should go next to carry out their task. This is what Toyah has been puzzling out - how to group the existing marine links.

Below is what the proposed marine licensing page will look like - quite a difference!

image of the new marine page

Because the links take their name from the page they point to, it’s not always as obvious what they’re referring to as it could be. But to change the name of the destination page isn’t something we can just go ahead and do without consulting all the various subject matter experts. So for now, Toyah has built her jigsaw… but future work is needed to improve the naming of the related pages.

Still, even this relatively small step has made the user experience better - and that’s what we’re here to do!

Fun with phonetics

Lucinda held a content crit to ask our collective opinions on some work she’s doing around the use of phonetics within a particular system. It was really interesting as this is not a subject many of us have ever really encountered. We were happy to offer our thoughts so that Lucinda could make some design decisions – collaborative working FTW!

Bird licensing

Phil and Sam continue working on species content and forms, this week looking at:

  • what NatureScot and Natural England have on their website
  • building the bird licence change and renew forms
  • mapping out a high level user journey
  • creating questions for conversations with SMEs starting next week

Work continues on GA4 learning materials

Sophie has re-familiarised herself with the latest guidance for the Google Analytics platform as she builds guidance to support staff and users in reviewing analytics data for their monthly reports and more. Last year, Google switched to GA4, their next-generation analytics platform, which has replaced Universal Analytics. Aligning our own guidance with the terminology used by Google on their new platform helps our users to complete their tasks with clarity.

Fun Fact Friday

Did you know?

While January is the start of a new year for us these days, this was not always the case.

Great Britain and its American colonies did not begin following the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Before then they celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25.

We don’t know about you, but we reckon March might be a nicer time for a fresh start than the depths of cold wet winter. Perhaps we should start a petition to return to the old ways?