Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: Adelaide City Council

Our fourth staff pick comes from Adelaide City Council. We are big fans of most things the team at Adelaide does and this project is no exception. Have a read below why we think this project is great.

Site: Adelaide City Council

Project: Park Lands Shared Walking and Cycling Paths

Publish Date: 27 February 2015

Topic: 27 February 2015

Tools: Survey

Widgets: 2x Photo Gallery, Document Library, 2x FAQ, Key Dates

What we like:

1. Project specific banner:  You will read this here time and again; project specific banners are recommended. They enhance the look and feel of any project so long as they fit into the overall page design, which this banner absolutely does. 

2. Consistency: The majority of projects in Adelaide's EHQ are set up in a similar fashion. This provides a consistent look and it ensures that all projects meet the same standard. This for example includes the use of Key Dates and FAQs in all projects and the provision of a 'Consultation Pack' PDF (see point 4).  

3. Supporting documents: The supporting documents are available in the document library and are neatly organised into folders. In addition the graphical components of the documentation are uploaded separately and displayed through photo widgets, giving visitors the option to either download documents or to look at key components in the widget itself. This not only adds colour to the project, but it is great practice too. Visitors from mobile devices will be more likely to look at a photo then download a PDF. 

4. The consultation packs: This relates to points 2 and 3. Adelaide are doing an outstanding job in providing supporting documents and are doing so in a consistent manner across all projects. Have a look the Consultation Pack PDFs. They contain ALL necessary information, including the feedback forms, and they look fantastic.

5. Feedback form: The two enabled forms in this project are short and to the point. They also give participants the chance to upload documents. The descriptions of both forms feature links to the key documents and they clearly state when the submission phase concludes.

6. Two in one: This consultation could have easily been split into two separate projects. After all these are two different parks Adelaide is consulting on. To combine them into one, and doing so with a clean separation (two forms, two FAQ sections, two document libraries), is smart because there is only one project to maintain and it will potentially provide greater rate of engagement as participants can look at both forms without having to navigate from one project to the next.

For further consideration: 

1. Contact information: There is no information on how to contact the team, other than through the feedback form. 'Contact Us' information are available on Adelaide's homepage, but it could be beneficial to provide this information in the project itself. On the other hand this might distract from the forms.

2. Project title: We often recommend to include a call to action in the project title. Call to actions such as "Tell us...." or "Join the discussion..." can be encouraging to participants. Have a read here if you would like to learn more about this.

OVERALL: Adelaide City Council are continuously delivering projects on a very high standard across the board. There is no question they have one of the best organised EHQ sites out there. The project outlined here is just one example of many and in fact they are contenders for the staff pick every few weeks. This project is great because it showcases this high standard nicely and shows how to combine two projects into one effectively. Adelaide's EHQ should be a point of reference to any EHQ administrator who is striving to improve their site.

NOTE: The above is based on a visit to the site on 12 March 2015. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.