Some of our favourite Sitemorse articles from 2019

13 Dec 2019 | General

Michelle Hay
  • Tweet this item
  • share this item on Linkedin

So, it’s nearly a wrap for 2019 and hard to believe the months have gone so quickly.  It’s been another very busy year here at Sitemorse. We’ve continued to improve the service and onboard clients. We relaunched our website and we’ve also continued to publish hundreds of articles on this blog.

Looking back across the year, here’s a selection of some of our favourite articles and posts we’ve published during 2019.

January 

How the Sitemorse Academy delivers just-in-time learning to your content community

Back at the start of 2019 we looked at Sitemorse as a learning platform and its ability to upskill your content community. The article argues that the combination of instructional videos delivered at the point of need combined with the real experience of actually solving specific issues provides a potent example of just-in-time learning. In practice this allows digital teams and content contributors to learn as they go and reinforce good content behaviours in a highly effective way.  

February

Benchmark your site using the Sitemorse INDEX

We’ve now been independently benchmarking websites and other digital channels through our INDEX for over fifteen years across a number of different criteria. In response to the regular questions we receive about tracking digital improvement, accessibility and more this article gives the detail about how our benchmarking works and the insight it can bring you.  

March

Landmark vote on the European Accessibility Act

Here at Sitemorse we always keep up with the latest developments around web accessibility and try to bring updates that matter to your attention. For example, in March we reported on this hugely significant (but not widely reported) vote on the European Accessibility Act that will have a massive impact on the future requirements for different channels and devices to be accessible, although it will not be in operation for a long time yet. We’ve also now introduced a weekly accessibility update that comes out every Thursday and summarises the key news items from the previous week.

April

The Golden Hour- deploying Sitemorse and having a coffee

Did you know you can deploy Sitemorse in less than an hour, get insights from automation and already start fixing prioritised issues? In May we covered this “golden hour” in more detail with a video and chart, showing just how easy Sitemorse is to implement and what can be achieved in under sixty minutes. The golden hour even allows time for a relaxing coffee; ours is a skinny latte with at least two shots please…

May

Accessibility – are UK local councils burying their head in the sand?

With public sector websites and apps now needing to be accessible from September 2019 we looked at the progress the local UK government sector is actually making in this area with only a few months to go. The results from our survey of over 400 local authority sites weren’t encouraging – there was still a lot of work to do, making us wonder whether local councils were indeed burying their head in the sand on this very important issue.

June

Embracing a design system

A design system is a site or repository that provides access to visual assets, design guidelines and more. It’s a more comprehensive and increasingly popular way to try to manage brand and design consistency across digital channels where multiple parties, both internal and external, are involved. In this article we look at what a design system is and how Sitemorse can help in establishing the integrity of the assets and guidelines within it.

July

The five critical elements of continuous digital improvement

Here at Sitemorse we strongly believe in continuous improvement, not only in the way we configure the platform but also in the methodology we advocate for improving digital channels. In this article we unpack the concept of continuous digital improvement and look at five critical elements – mindset, clarity, measurement, process and upskilling. This will be of interest to anyone thinking broadly how they can deliver continuous improvement or similar through their team.

August

Technical Service Bulletin 34 – improving accessibility helps everyone

Each week our Support Lead, Helen Grimbly, diligently produces the Technical Services Bulletin featuring short and to-the-point guidance on how to get the best out of Sitemorse. Not only is this helpful to Sitemorse customers, but also produces some real pearls of wisdom. In August, Helen’s observation that “Improving accessibility helps everyone” was a great reminder that accessibility isn’t just about compliance but has much wider benefits including better usability and increased revenue Taking Helen’s original post as inspiration, we later wrote about why improving digital accessibility is actually a strategic investment.

September

Establishing brand consistency across websites

In September we explored the importance and the logistics of trying to establish brand consistency in terms of pages, channels, consent and look and feel across a complicated digital footprint with a decentralised management model. The article covers some of the tactics and approaches that can help in this challenging area, including creating publishing guidelines, delivering author training, using page templates and supporting efforts with automation.  

October 

State of the Nation report on accessibility across UK local authorities

From September 2019 all UK public sector websites must be AA compliant with WCAG 2.1 rules, but there is still a lot of work to do. Building on our earlier surveys (see our entry for May!) and working with SOCITM we published a ‘State of the Nation’ report that gives a snapshot of where local authorities are on their web accessibility journey. With only 12.2% of pages actually achieving AA compliance, the report shows that many councils need to up their game. You can also download the companion ‘State of the Nation’ report on accessibility in universities.

November

Bloomreach and Sitemorse Partnership, bringing real time digital experience reporting

In November we were excited to finally let the cat out of the bag and officially announce our strategic partnership with CMS provider Bloomreach. The partnership means that all Bloomreach customers have the potential to access Sitemorse from right within the Bloomreach system, allowing digital teams to “deliver full content control and user experience testing in one package”.  This not only puts Sitemorse’s powerful automation in the hands of more digital teams, but effectively adds extra capabilities to a leading content management system. The post also includes a video to show how the integration works. 

December

The role automation plays in managing brand risk and consistency

Effective brand management in the digital sphere is always a challenge in a fast-moving, multi-channel world. Digital commentator Kristina Podnar wrote an interesting article about how sentiment analysis can be an essential tactic to manage risk and establish consistency. In this thoughtful post, Mike Carter also explores how automation can also be a key approach, helping deliver sentiment analysis but also contributing to brand consistency and risk management in an increasingly litigious world.

See you in 2020

We hope you enjoyed the blog through the year and found it useful. We’ll be continuing to bring you thought pieces, updates and newsletters throughout 2020 so we hope to see you back here. And, of course, we wish you a very happy festive season and a truly peaceful and prosperous new year.