Architecture and Infrastructure

The design of the technology layers that support the web systems to work together

It is important for all the various web systems that a Local Authority needs now and in the future to be able to work together coherently – to interoperate.  This requires that consideration be given to the design of the interoperation mechanisms, how they share data, how they notify each other about events and where security boundaries can be applied.

The use of a service-oriented architecture and the separation of the storage of content (of all types) from the tools used to create it and the presentation of that content, is necessary to ensure that interoperability with other systems is made simple and future innovation paths are left open.

Transactions must be easy, obvious and ubiquitous

All transactions, especially financial ones, must be easy and obvious. They need good process and form design. They must have well stated and easy to understand validation requirements. Help should be contextual rather than stuck away in a separate silo. All information needs to be re-used subject to privacy controls. Transaction pages have to be simple to understand, have easy to access security policies and be fully accessible.

Transactions are part of the key group of website features that should definitely be available via mobile devices.

Making data available

Providing citizens and businesses with access to Local Authority data delivers greater value for all citizens. When in re-usable and easily consumed formats data enables the large community of technically adept citizens and businesses to create new tools and visualisations that can extract greater knowledge and understanding from it. This is in alignment with open.gov.uk, championed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

Initiatives like this are designed to show the potential economic and promotional value of government data by making it freely available to the public in formats that allow and encourage the data to be re-used.