London Met Police Digital Transformation
Awards
BIMA Awards 2018 | BIMA Advance Grand Prix | Winner
BIMA Awards 2018 | Transformation & Consultancy Impact | Winner
UX Design Awards 2017 | UX Design Concept 2017 | Winnner
Core77 design awards 2017 | Service Design Award | Runner-up
Core77 design awards 2017 | Strategy & Research Award | Runner-up
Cannes Lions 2018 | Innovation | Shortlisted
Lovie Awards 2017 | Best Navigation & Structure | Winner
Lovie Awards 2017 | Best User Experience | Winner
Lovie Awards 2017 | Websites, Government & Civic | Gold Winner
Lovie Awards 2017 | Websites, Best Practices | Winner
Lovie Awards 2017 | Websites, Web Services & Applications | Winner
The Team
WAE/Globant:
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Project lead
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UX designer
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Visual designer
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Content strategist
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UX researcher
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Content designer (me)
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Copywriter
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Content Producer
The Met:
- Product owner
- Delivery manager
The London Metropolitan Police Service, commonly known as the Met, is the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London.
In 2016, the London Metropolitan Police faced major challenges, including counter-terrorism responses to several attacks and rising violent crime.
Part of a modernisation program under new Commissioner Cressida Dick, the Met closed over 40 public-facing front desks across London, with a view to moving all of these services online.
The Challenge
Create an accessible hub of digital services and advice to better serve the public and reduce operational demand.
Known issues:
- Historic public trust issues limiting crime reporting
- Existing website content hard to navigate and not mobile friendly
- Legacy operational inefficiencies in handling enquiries
- Decentralised website content creation and governance
- Limited user insights and analytics
- New CMS and build team already contracted
The old Met website homepage
The Approach
Advice content (100+ pages):
- Conduct a full site audit
- Propose a new IA
- Interview SMEs for content updates
- Rewrite all required content
- Develop the current tone of voice
- QA and publish to the new CMS
Rapid tool development:
- Broadly map all new features
- Workshop new features with SMEs
- Redesign all required forms
- Introduce new triage processes
- User test and iterate
- QA and publish to the new CMS
The old Met website contact page
Outputs
Advice pages
Once page templates were desigend and approved, we liaised with subject matter experts across the Met, from events licensing to child protection teams, to find the best and most sensitive ways of representing their particular field and expert advice.
It was then up to me to write all the new content, condensing over 100 existing pages into around 40.
Triages
The police deal with thousands of different types of forms. As a member of the public, finding the correct one and completing it successfully can be a massive pain.
The online triage tool we developed allowed us to break down often very complicated subjects and processes into simple questions and answers. This format helps users navigate quickly to the information, or the all-new online forms, they need.
Through user testing and analytics we found people were also using the triage tool to self-educate, helping to reduce calls to 101.
The Met Website on BBC News
In December 2016, one of the reporting services I helped to develop was the lead story on BBC London News. The new service allows anyone involved in an accident or altercation on the road in London to notify the police online.
For the public, it’s a simpler and more convenient way to notify the police. For the Met, the new service lowers operating costs by reducing admin time and increasing the quality of information being gathered up front.
Forms
Who doesn’t love a form? Almost everybody, it turns out. Which is why we ran workshops with dozens of teams across the Met who regularly use paper forms as part of their service, to find simpler approaches, improve efficiency and reduce operating costs.
Though still far from perfect, the huge range of new online forms is already improving processing time, reducing errors (on both sides) and providing users with a more transparent service.
In particular, the ‘Report a crime’ triage and form together represent one of the most sophisticated online crime reporting tools in the world.
Outcome
In the first 12 months:
- 500% increase in site traffic
- 100,000 crimes reported
- 65% reduction in police time spent on triage
- 7,200 hours saved just on road-traffic allegations
- 90% of all road-traffic allegations received online
Any crime in London can now be reported online. At the time of launch, this made it the largest and most sophisticated crime reporting tool in the world.
The model has since been rolled out nationally.
Your Area
I was heavily involved in all of the features above, but the team created a host of other useful new tools as well.
Your area, for example, is a section of the website where users can find up-to-date, interactive crime stats on their ‘ward’ (the area covered by their local police team), including the top three crimes and tailored advice on how to stay safe.
Careers
The Careers section of the site gave us a chance to use a fresh new wave of post-beta CMS components, such as pagination. This allows users to navigate large amounts of information quickly.
Prospective Met employees and volunteers should soon be able to learn all about the roles available and apply for a role directly through the website.