Staff Picks

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Learning from others is the best way to get ideas for your next consultation!

Our Staff Picks hub is where you will find a range of resources to help improve your online engagement practice. On this page, you can find content using the categories filter on the right.Read through our latest;
  • EHQ Staff Picks
  • Online Community Engagement Advice
  • EHQ Best Practice
If you have better practice suggestions or would like to ask us a question about any of the resources in this section, please use the Ask Us tool below.

Learning from others is the best way to get ideas for your next consultation!

Our Staff Picks hub is where you will find a range of resources to help improve your online engagement practice. On this page, you can find content using the categories filter on the right.Read through our latest;
  • EHQ Staff Picks
  • Online Community Engagement Advice
  • EHQ Best Practice
If you have better practice suggestions or would like to ask us a question about any of the resources in this section, please use the Ask Us tool below.

Category EHQ Staff Pick   Show all

  • EHQ Staff Pick: Vision Australia

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    We are very excited about this weeks staff pick because it has a positive impact for all out clients. Vision Australia launched their EngagementHQ site in early November. Not only is it fantastic to see Vision Australia leap into online community engagement, we could not be prouder that EHQ has been selected for this significant step. We have been feverishly working closely with Vision Australia to make EHQ more accessible for the Blind and Low Vision Community.

    Client: Vision Australia

    Template: Whitehaven

    Site: Participate Vision Australia

    Publish Date: 05 November 2016

    Topic: "Participate Vision Australia" is comprised of a variety of projects for people who are blind or have low vision to share information, tips and experiences. The consultations topics range employment, to education and social inclusion.

    Tools: Forum, Brainstormer

    Widgets: Signup Banner, Photo Gallery, FAQ, Key Dates, Related Projects,

    We love:

    1. The approach: Big kudos to Vision Australia for taking the leap into online community engagement. Many organisations are required to tick a lot of compliance boxes before they are ready to make the move and launch their site. Arguably, this is a lot stricter for Vision Australia than in many other organisation due to their commitment to ensure people who are blind or have low vision have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

    2. EHQ's accessibility compliance: This staff pick must also give credit to our development teams' continued commitment to consider WCAG highest standards. Accessibility has always been high on our agenda, but our work with the team from Vision Australia has undoubtedly pushed this to another level and made EHQ one of the most accessible online engagement systems in the world. Read more about our accessibility compliance here.

    3. ALT texts: Although we develop EHQ in such a way that all features and functionality is accessible, there are certain areas of EHQ that need the administrators input for full accessibility. One such area is the ALT text for images. An ALT text is used by screenreaders when an image is displayed. Because people who are blind or have low vision cannot rely on information to be conveyed just via an image, it is important to provide meaningful ALT text so that the visitor can make sense of what the image is displaying. You can insert your own ALT text in various places in EHQ, for example in any images you use on your homepage or in your project pages. Meaningful ALT text should at the very least describe the text that is part of the image or describe what is visible in the image. The team at Vision Australia have done so wherever applicable.



    4. Use of tools: Intuitively, one might think that our Survey or Forum tools may be the best tool to achieve accessibility, simply because of their simplicity, since there is mostly text. However, we always aim to make all tools accessible and credit must go to the team at Vision Australia to explore the use of the Brainstormer and make it the hero tool on most of their project pages.

      The Brainstormer was also used to collect ideas during a live event, thus combining face to face and online engagement. The Brainstormer has been used for that more and more in recent month which is a great development to watch.

    5. Range of engagement: Vision Australia have launched their site with a whole range of projects and consultations topics published. We have emphasized in the past that when you launch a new site or a new project, you should aim to publish multiple engagement opportunities at the same time. Participants who have participated once may just be in the mood to continue to do so, which is why you should give them plenty of opportunities to do so.

    For further consideration:

    1. About Us: Although the 'About Us' project page is a great idea, it is a bit light on information and could have done with a bit more detail and FAQs. Also, a News Feed on this page might have been helpful to keep the community updated with whats happening across the site.

    2. Newsletter Sign Up: The 'About Us' page also features a link to an external newsletter subscription. Obviously, we would have liked to see this being done via EHQ, but we understand that sometimes there are cases where an already existing newsletter subscription must be utilised. In that case, the team could have embedded the subscription form in a custom widget as opposed to providing an external link that navigates people away from the site.

    OVERALL: We are very proud of this site and so should the team at Vision Australia. Great effort has been undertaken to achieve the best possible accessibility for people who are blind or have low vision, both through EHQ's features as well as meaningful images and ALT text. Full accessibility is a journey that really never ends, so the challenge for all involved will be to maintain the high standards achieved at the time of site launch.

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 11 November 2016. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.

  • EHQ Staff Pick: City of Nedlands, Western Australia

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    This is the second pick for the City of Nedlands in just a few months. The first time we highlighted the consistently brilliant preparation of their consultations and the idea of 'informing projects'. While this project is another example of a great project setup, this time we really like the approach to the overall engagement. Read below what grabbed our attention in particular.

    Client: City of Nedlands, Western Australia

    Template: Whitehaven

    Project: St.Peters Square Gardens - Playground Equipment Upgrade

    Publish Date: 22 August 2016

    Topic: The city is upgrading playground equipment in a local playground and is asking the community on feedback on four different proposed designs.

    Tools: News Feed, Quick Poll, Q&A, Guestbook

    Widgets: Signup Banner, FAQ, Document Library, Life Cycle, Who's Listening

    We love:

    1. Quality of project setup: As we have come to expect from the City of Nedlands, this is another high quality project. It ticks a lot of boxes and there are no gaps. What we are looking for are dead links, empty widgets and the like. None of this can be found in this project, which is testament to the attention to detail and the thorough process the city has established to ensure a high quality of all projects.

    2. Use of Quick Poll: The Quick Poll is rarely the 'hero tool' of consultations, but often used as a secondary tool to capture quick feedback. In this case, the Quick Poll is in the heart of the consultation and allows the participant to get involved quickly and easily.

      If you publish a lot of projects, try using all tools at least once. This will give you a better understanding of their function, but also provides a bit of variety to your regular visitors.

    3. Mix of tools: The project was designed to engage the participant in the decision making, giving them the opportunity to contact the project team and to be kept up to date with the progress. The mix of tools chosen to achieve these goals is ideal. The Quick Poll and Guestbook ask for feedback on the proposed designs, the Q&A tool offers transparency and make the team approachable (see point 5 below) and the News Feed is there to keep the community informed about the progress.

    4. Key document availability: The project description features images of the four proposed designs and, being in the middle of the screen, this grabs the visitors attention straight away. The document library also features each design as a high quality file download. It's crucial for consultations around draft documents or plans to make sure these documents are actually available, easy to find and the file size allow a quick download.

      Having said that, the documents in this case do have a downside. They are in different formats and different sizes. Ideally, all four design proposals should have been made available in the same format (in this case either jpeg or PDF) and in a similar file size. While one can download proposal two in a few seconds, proposal three is more than ten times bigger and hence takes much longer to open.

    5. Approachable team: Great to the see that the City of Nedlands have gone to length to ensure that the team behind this consultation can be contacted. There is a Q&A tool which allows participants to ask a question and the project officer is introduced via the Who's Listening widget with a friendly image.

    For further consideration:

    1. Project title: The project title is rather dry and long. While it perfectly outlines what this project is about, we like to see shorter titles (certainly should fit on one line) that ideally are also framed as a call to action. The tools have been renamed and include calls to action, which makes the lack of a call to action in the title a little bit of a surprise.

    2. Links to other projects: An opportunity has been missed here to link to other live consultations. In particular since there is at least one other project published with a similar topic ("All abilities play space"). This should not be underestimated. Getting people to your site is half the job done. Once they are there, make sure it is easy for them to move around and find other opportunities to get involved.

    OVERALL: We have come to expect excellent consultation from the City of Nedlands. This project was chosen as a staff pick because it involves participants on multiple levels, informs them about the progress of the consultation so far and promotes transparency and personal contact. It is the perfect mix for a consultation about a playground upgrade.

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 30 August 2016. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.

  • Fortnightly Staff Pick: City of Nedlands

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    This week's staff pick from the City of Nedlands in Western Australia is a great example of an informational project and what can happen when an entire organisation embraces the online engagement possibilities of EngagementHQ.

    Client: City of Nedlands, Western Australia

    Project: Pathway Connection - Whitney Crescent and Mt Claremont Community Centre

    Publish Date: 09 May 2016

    Topic: A limestone-coloured concrete pathway is being built to connect a community centre to a park. The consultation is informing the community about the work being done and allows community members to ask questions and provide feedback.

    Tools: Newsfeed, Form, Q&A

    Widgets: Registration Banner,Key Dates, Document Library, Who's Listening

    We love:

    1. The council's enthusiasm: Organisational buy-in can be a struggle for many EngagementHQ site administrators. Whilst they can see the possibilities of engaging communities online via EHQ, it often takes a lot of time and effort to convince a wider range of people in the organisation.

      Nedlands City Council took this on board and committed to using EHQ to its full potential as the benefits were well communicated internally and embraced from the top down.
    2. The breadth of engagement: When there is organisational buy-in, the breadth of engagement possible naturally increases. The team at the City of Nedlands have been incredibly busy and published one project per week on average since they came on board at the start of 2016. Some projects are high profile with a lot of engagement, like the Local Planning Strategy consultation (with outstanding engaged numbers), others are low key, like the current example.
    3. The idea of 'informing projects': Our clients are publishing many more sites, which is a trend witnessed across all EHQ sites. Many organisations now use EHQ to not only to engage with the community but also to inform community members about current projects and ongoing initiatives. This project is a great example of this, one of a number of informational projects by the City of Nedlands.

      The benefit of publishing these type of projects is that a client's EHQ site becomes a real community hub where people can find out what council is doing and how it affects them. This project informs, but also allows participants to provide feedback or ask questions, which epitomises the
      City of Nedlands dedication to include community input in council's work.
    4. The consistency: The City of Nedlands have clear publishing guidelines, which is why all their published projects look and feel fantastic. The high quality of all of the City of Nedlands' projects can be attributed to the hard work and dedication of the site administrator.
    5. The set up: The City of Nedlands' project set up across all projects is almost impeccable. All their projects have images and a Key Dates, Document Library and Who's Listening widget. In most cases, the team also enables the Q&A tool to give the community an opportunity to ask questions.

      The project descriptions are mostly short and concise, and all projects have a clear call-to-action and also include links to guide the visitor through the project. This is consistent across all projects and hence delivers familiarity to the visitor.

    For further consideration:

    1. Images: Some of the images are a bit too big in terms of file size and can load slowly for visitors on slower internet connections. As a rule of thumbs, images should never exceed 1MB and smaller is better (but not too small!).

    2. Who's Listening photos: We like to see the Who's Listening widget in use, but it should contain an image of the team member who is 'listening'. If the team member does not feel comfortable showing their face, include a logo like the City of Sydney or use colourful imagery like Wingecarribee.

    OVERALL: The more projects you publish, the more value you get out of EngagementHQ. This is particularly true for regularly publishing high-quality projects like the City of Nedlands. Whilst this staff pick project may not break visitation records it is still important that it is well-presented so the community can consistently see the Council is being transparent about its actions. This is the value of informative projects.

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 16 May 2016. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.


  • Fortnightly Staff Pick: City of Sydney

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    One of EngagementHQ's strengths is the variety of tools you can use across your consultations. The Survey function is the most popular tool, with the Discussion Forum a close second. The Guestbook, on the other hand, is rarely enabled. Admittedly, the use cases are more limited than for many other tools, which is why we were very excited when we saw the City of Sydney use the Guestbook to ask people to make a pledge to their city. This is a very creative and unique way to engage your community and a great choice for our fortnightly staff pick.

    Client: City of Sydney, Australia.

    Project: A City for All: towards a socially just and resilient Sydney

    Publish Date: Early March 2016

    Topic: The City of Sydney is developing a social sustainability policy to strengthen the city’s social fabric. The community is asked to make a pledge to help make the city inclusive, connected, liveable and engaged.

    Tools: Survey, Guestbook

    Widgets: Photo, Key Dates, Document Library, Lifecycle, Who's Listening, 2x Custom (Twitter and further information)

    We love:

    1. The creative use of the Guestbook: The Guestbook is not often used across EngagementHQ sites. Usually, the Forum tool works to encourage community discussions. However, in this case, the Guestbook is the perfect way to ask Sydneysiders to commit to such an important cause. And there is some research suggesting that pledging increases the likelihood to follow through with what was pledged.

    2. Document library: We always emphasize how important it is to provide documents in small and easily accessible files. That means as PDFs and preferably below 2MB. The document library in this project is an example of how you can break down a large document (28MB) into its various parts and make it easy and accessible for everyone. The key document is even provided in various languages.

    3. Survey design: Alongside the Guestbook, the team has enabled a well-designed survey. It is split into different sections, is short and easy to complete. It contains links to key documents but still provides enough high level information for participants to complete the survey quickly. It is complimentary to the very open and creative approach on the Guestbook.

    4. Overall campaign: The City of Sydney always does a terrific job of driving visitor traffic and this time is no different. They have one of the most visited EHQ sites of all time. Granted, they have a big team but they also know what they are doing and tick all the right boxes. They use as many tools as they can to suit their cause including Twitter, news releases, newsletter and else is required.

    5. Clean and tidy look: The City of Sydney has always preferred a clean and tidy look to their consultations. After all, Sydney was the first to use a prototype of our popular 'Whitehaven' template. This project is no different and they actually have uploaded a little .gif animation.

    For further consideration:

    1. Faces: Although the landing page has people featured in the project image, once you go to the project page, there aren't any images of people. People love seeing people, and it is particularly important for a project that is all about social sustainability, which is all about people.

    2. Hashtag specific Twitter feed: The Twitter feed in the project is the generic Sydney Your Say feed. While there is nothing wrong with that, the overall consultation actually does has its own hashtag (#Sydney4all). This gets lost a little in this project and could have been emphasized by a hashtag specific feed.

    OVERALL: We are always looking out for great projects that use EHQ's engagement tools in unique ways and this project provides another great site example. The City of Sydney is constantly engaging their community both on small matters as well as important, big topics such as social sustainability. This project is yet another example of fantastic online community engagement by the City of Sydney.

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 08 April 2016. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.

  • Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: The Women's

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    When we're looking for staff picks, we usually seek out projects that clearly deploy great methodology and/or look terrific. Often these projects need significant development time before launch. This fortnight's staff pick is a little different. The Women's engagement team had to create a project about staff name badges quickly and did a terrific job; with over 500 responses in less than a day!

    Client: The Royal Women's Hospital, Victoria, Australia

    Project: Women's staff name badges

    Publish Date: 07 March 2016

    Topic: The Women's are designing new name badges for staff and volunteers and are asking all stakeholders including staff, volunteers and patients for their input on four different design options.

    Tools: Survey

    Widgets: Signup Banner, FAQ, Who's Listening, Facebook

    We love:

    1. The turnaround time: This project was created and published very quickly. It shows you don't always need a long-term engagement strategy or to overthink outcomes before launching a project. Sometimes it's good to just get out there and engage quickly.

    2. Innovative use of the survey tool: This is a simple survey with just two questions. The Women's used a HTML-enabled 'radio button' in order to include images of the proposed badge designs.

    3. Human touch: The 'Who's Listening' widget is slowly turning into one of our top three widgets. The widget shows who exactly is managing the consultation and provides a human face for interaction, which is especially important when consulting in the health industry or about health matters.

    4. The page balance: This project has the perfect page balance between the left and right columns, which are the same length providing symmetry.

    For further consideration:

    1. Badge Designs: With some more time, the team at The Women's could have created more attractive badge designs, or perhaps asked their community to co-design the badges.

    2. Links to other projects: This is a popular and well-viewed project, which could have provided a starting point for participants to visit other consultations had the appropriate links been included. A well-executed project always provides the opportunity to cross-promote other consultations. You already have the community's attention, don't lose the chance to retain their interest.

      These other project links can also appear in the 'thank you' message of a consultation rather than in a widget or the navigation bar.

    OVERALL: This project proves you don't always have to spend weeks of development time before launching a project. Sometimes it is better to launch quickly and gather participant responses straight away. This doesn't mean not thinking it through but rather understanding the parameters required for a consultation's success. It is apparent the Women's have quite a bit of experience working with EngagementHQ and executed a fantastic project. We'd love to see more of the same!

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 09 March 2016. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.

  • Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: Bayside City Council

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    We selected another fantastic consultation by Bayside City Council (this is their 2nd time around!) as our fortnightly staff pick due to their innovative approach. Bayside is reaching out to two hard to reach segments of the community: parents and their 2 to 12-year-old kids. This project asks for parents and their youngsters to become official playground testers!

    Client: Bayside City Council, Victoria, Australia

    Project: Playground Improvement Plan

    Publish Date: (republished) February 5, 2016

    Topic: Bayside City Council is seeking community feedback in order to improve the area's playgrounds. To do so, they are inviting parent-child teams to try out local play equipment. These testers will visit ten playgrounds in two months and provide feedback via secret journals.

    Tools: Survey, Q&A

    Widgets: 3x Photo Gallery, Custom, Who's Listening, Document Library,

    We love:

    1. Concept: Both parents and young children are traditionally difficult citizens to engage. Parents lack the time to take part in engagement activities and children, due to their young age, are limited by the amount of relevant consultations they can take part in.

      Since the callout for playground testers went out only a couple weeks ago, hundreds of local parent-child teams have registered to take part.
    2. Introduction: This consultation takes a simple approach. Parents register their children as playground testers and maintain a journal of their child's playground experiences whose results are subsequently tallied by the engagement team. A good project description and custom widget introduce the project clearly. With just once glance at the page, the project requirements are very easy to understand.
    3. Imagery: Cute images and an adorable project banner give this site a fun look and feel.
    4. Q&A tool: We have previously mentioned it is worthwhile to include a Q&A tool in almost any project. Why? The Q&A tool promotes transparency and builds trust between the agency running the consultation and the public, as long as you respond to questions in a timely fashion.

      It is even better when the tool includes a call-to-action, which is the case in this project.
    5. Survey tool: This project requires user registrations and the survey function is the best tool for this purpose. We encourage you to take a look at the second page of the "Playground Testers Wanted" survey, where kids are asked what special power they would like to have if they were superheroes? We're not sure if this helps with tester selection or if it is just to get kids excited about the project. In any case, this type of fun question should be included in any kind of children's consultation.

    For further consideration:

    1. Who's Listening: The 'Who's Listening' widget is a fantastic feature to use for this type of consultation. With projects that involve children, you want to ensure there is a lot of trust between the community and the project team. The Who's Listening widget promotes this transparency. However, it could be improved further by including a picture of the team member that is 'listening' to this consultation.

    2. Links: Although there are a couple of links to the registration form, there needs to be at least one more, in the Current Playgrounds description to ensure possible registrants aren't being lost. Making sure there are plenty of links and they are all working is a crucial final step before launching any online engagement project.

    OVERALL: We love this great and innovative consultation. What a fantastic way to include both parents and young children in community engagement and to encourage parents to be active with their children. From a practice standpoint, this is also an awesome project. Well done!

    NOTE: The article above is based on a visit to the site on 15 February 2015. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.


  • Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: Department Of Environment And Planning ACT

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    Our fortnightly staff pick is a fantastic example of how to use EngagementHQ to close the loop on a community consultation. This well-designed project by the Department of Environment and Planning in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) demonstrates the importance of keeping the community informed about a consultation's status as well as ensuring the community their input was received and is helping guide the decision-making process.

    Client: Department of Environment and Planning, ACT, Australia

    Project: Statement of Planning Intent

    Publish Date: 16 November 2015

    Topic: The 'Statement of Planning Intent' consultation will guide the direction of Canberra’s future built environment. Earlier this year over 170 stakeholders and community members were engaged in a conversation about this issue, the results of which are now presented back to the community.

    Tools: Surveys & Forms

    Widgets: Facebook, Photos Gallery, Document Library, Important Links, Who's Listening

    We love:

    1. Closing the loop: We're big believers in the practice of closing the loop of a community engagement process. This means notifying and informing your community and stakeholders about the outcome and/or progress of a consultation, even if there is no current engagement. This includes reaching out to already engaged participants but also ensuring transparency with anyone with an interest in the topic.
    2. Looking ahead: This project clearly displays the results of the consultation and outlines key steps moving forward. This highlights the fact that community engagement is a continuous process.
    3. Use of the Form tool: The site administrators are using the Form tool in an innovative way by asking participants to register their details in order to receive regular updates about the project. This helps keep people engaged in the consultation and provides administrators with a sense of the community's ongoing interest. Of course, this works seamlessly with EHQ's in-built newsletter function which allows you to send relevant group emails to your project database.
    4. Supporting documents: Two key documents are available for viewing on this site. The original 'Intent' paper and the 'Public Engagement Report'. We like the latter in particular in light of the keeping participants informed best practice mentioned in point 1 above.
    5. Look: This project uses great photos and imagery to provide context for the consultation. Generic photos are featured as well as great images taken at the consultation workshops. On a whole, the site looks great and invites people to engage with the content.

    For further consideration:

    1. Alternative picture names: Any image you upload to EHQ, in particular into the 'Project Image' function or into any tool description, should always contain a title name. Why? The image name is used as an 'alt' tag in the site's HTML coding and this alt tag is picked up by screen readers so that visually impaired people can hear what the image is about, which provides accessibility to all users and the alt tag is also crucial for improving search engine results.

      To edit an image name, simply click on an image after uploading to reach the box below. There you can enter the title, any external link that you wish the photo to link to and adjust the image position.

    2. Facebook widget: There are three types of Facebook integrations available for use with EHQ. This project uses a widget that allows people to comment via Facebook though this isn't ideal. It would be better to use EHQ's own Guestbook function so that comments can be tracked and moderated directly via EHQ.

    OVERALL: Last fortnight's staff pick focussed on involving the community from the start of a consultation process. This week we focus on the opposite end of the project lifecycle. By using best practice techniques and closing the loop on a consultation, the community is kept informed and involved about a topic even after the official engagement has concluded. We highly commend the ACT's Department of Environment and Planning for a job well done.

    NOTE: The above is based on a visit to the site on 01 December 2015. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.


  • The Best Of EHQ Staff Picks For 2015!

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    This year we shared 20 of our best client sites that either excelled with great design, user functionality or excellent online engagement strategy. With 50-60 projects released each week, finding our favourites was no easy feat!

    With 2015 drawing to a close, we take a look back at some of these projects and look forward to sharing staff picks from our clients in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the USA in the new year!

    Spoiler alert: We were pleased to see most of our site pick sites were archived by our clients but still left accessible to the pubic and kept up-to-date, which ensures the community stays informed about consultation outcomes. Keeping the community in the loop is fantastic best practice and further evidence these organisations deserve our praise.

    Wingecarribee Shire Council

    Wingecarribee Shire Council in NSW, Australia, was our first ever local government staff pick that stood out for a consultation on animal welfare services. The council received 1944 public responses, both online and offline by post. This community-consulted feedback resulted in the council deciding to keep the related animal shelter under its own management.
    Wingecarribee has continued to communicate with the public on this issue. See their archived project here.

    Randwick City Council

    Randwick City Council in NSW, Australia created another great site with a consultation on local urban design awards. Community voting on entries and the people's choice award were all managed and facilitated via Randwick's Your Say Randwick site. The winners were also announced online, which showcased how to close the loop of a consultation effectively.

    See the archived project here.

    City of South Perth

    When the City of South Perth in Western Australia launched a trial consultation on parking issues earlier this year, they wanted to gauge community interest on the subject. Turns out a lot of people care about parking and want to have their say! The project page was well-designed and the mapping tool proved an integral part of the consultation.

    See the archived project here.

    Public Transport Victoria

    One of this year's most active consultations was by Pubic Transport Victoria (PTV) over the future of the public transport network in regional Victoria, Australia. The community posted more than 650 comments on PTV's discussion forums about the subject, which complemented a range of in-person public workshops held by PTV throughout the consultation period.

    PTV also did a great job of keeping the community informed about the project outcomes. Check out the 'Conversation Summaries' page here, which is a great way to feed information back to the community!

    Bayside City Council

    In Victoria, Australia, Bayside City Council's Elsternwick Masterplan remains one of the best looking and best-managed projects of the year! With a great looking site about a park re-design and relevant information provided in a simple and easy-to-understand format. Take a look at the forum discussion for a great example of a clear and simple description. The consultation received a lot of community feedback, the results of which will soon be considered by council.

    See the project here.

    What have we noticed this year?

    Going over this year's staff picks we noticed a few key elements for success:

    1. The sites all look visually attractive and follow good design principles
    2. Site copy is simple and easy-to-understand
    3. All relevant information is available and readily accessible on the site
    4. Engagement tools are used well. The best projects engage the community via a suite of exciting tools and do not wholly rely on the survey feature (though theCity of Port Phillip executed a survey in the best way possible!).

    We look forward to sharing many great new sites with you from around the world in the new year. Bring on 2016!


  • Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: Gladstone Regional Council

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    Our first staff pick for 2016 is also Gladstone Regional Council's first project. What a great start! The council wants community input about the reshaping and reimagining of the area's Central Business District and are using EHQ's engagement tools in very innovative ways. This project is well worth a click through and a closer look.

    Client: Gladstone Regional Council, Queensland, Australia

    Project: Help us jumpstart our city heart

    Publish Date: 20 January 2016

    Topic: Gladstone Regional Council is asking for community input on the renewal and revamp of Gladstone's CBD. The results of the consultation will help with the development of an Urban Renewal Strategy and Implementation Plan.

    Tools: Forum, Brainstormer, Mapper, Q&A

    Widgets: Photo Gallery, Document Library, Key Dates, FAQ, Related Projects

    We love:

    1. The simple introduction: Clear project descriptions are key to a successful engagement campaign. Ideally, an introduction sets up the context of a project, provides background information and guides users towards the engagement tools. In addition, the description should outline the expected outcomes of a project as well as clearly state the consultation close date. Gladstone Regional Council does this right in addition to containing the engagement close date in the Key Dates widget on the right-hand side of the screen instead of in the introduction.

    2. Innovative use of tool I (Discussion Forum): Gladstone Regional Council is our first EngagementHQ client to use the Pinterest photo board in a Forum. The photo board provides great visual imagery and also serves as inspiration for participants to visualise their ideal CBD. This really breaks new ground and we are interested to see how effective it is as we think it is a great idea.

    3. Innovative use of tool II (Brainstormer): Brainstormer is the second engagement tool used in this project and the second tab. Note how the call to action is phrased: "$1000 spaces - what would you do with the money?" We love the clarity and call to action. What a great way to get the participants in the right mindset to start sharing their ideas.

      Also, it is great practice to rename the tool tab with a call to action, in this case 'share your idea'. Perfect!

    4. Innovative use of tool III (Practice): Looking at all the engagement tools used in this consultation you will notice there are many comments, ideas and map markers only a few days into the project. Looking closer, you will observe that most of them come from the same set of users, called 'ExpoStall' or similar.

      Why is this the case? The engagement team at Gladstone attended a range of community events with tablets in hand to collect ideas and comments (and registrations). These community responses were then entered directly to the site providing a great starting point for conversation and archive of comments collected. This is a fantastic way to combine real-life community engagement with online engagement and a fabulous method to introduce their freshly launched EHQ site to an interested audience.

    5. Documentation: As alluded to in point one above, projects that provide simple background information and clearly set up a consultation context are usually the most effective. This can be achieved through the description, but usually only in conjunction with a well-organised widget space. This project is evidence of this. The Key Dates, Document Library and FAQ widgets on the right are simple to understand, have all the necessary details and the files small enough to download even on limited mobile data plans.

    For further consideration:

    1. Too many tools: Gladstone Regional Council has been very innovative in their tools use, however, there may be just one too many in play which could dilute the responses. Whilst the tools choice are good, including a mapping tool and the Q&A tool to increase transparency and build trust between the project team and community, there may not be a large enough audience to generate a wide response rate. Something to consider for future projects.

    2. Faces: We love seeing good imagery and colour on project pages. And this project contains a lot with images in the gallery and description, as well as on the Pinterest boards. The only thing missing is a few human faces! We always recommended including shots of people to give a project a human touch.

    OVERALL: Congratulations to Gladstone Regional Council for jumping headfirst into online community engagement! Trying to be innovative is difficult. Being innovative with your first project takes a leap of faith and sets the bar high for future projects. We can't wait to see what's more in store from Gladstone.

  • Fortnightly EHQ Staff Pick: Western Bay Of Plenty District Council (New Zealand)

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    The Western Bay of Plenty District Council is located on the picturesque North Island of New Zealand. The council's most recent online consultation speaks to coastal erosion and its effect on marine and community life in the area. We love how the council engagement team is getting the community involved at an early stage of the development of a 30-year policy. The project itself is also well designed, so let's take a look at what works.

    Client: Western Bay of Plenty District Council, New Zealand

    Project: Living With The Changing Tides

    Publish Date: 08 November 2015

    Topic: Coastal erosion is threatening the Western Bay of Plenty district and requires a long-term governmental plan for its management. The council is looking at developing a 30-year policy on the issue and want the community involved in formulating future solutions.

    Tools: Forum, Q&A, Quick Pool,Newsfeed and Guestbook

    Widgets: Photo Gallery,FAQ, 2x Document Library, 2x Quick Poll and Custom Widgets

    We love:

    1. Excellent consultation practice: Getting the community involved early in a consultation process is fantastic engagement best practice. Instead of being asked to comment on a developed policy, participants get the chance to influence and shape that policy. This builds trust between the government and the community and gives engaged participants a sense of ownership over the consultation process.
    2. Range of content: The consultation provides a huge range of research and information about coastal erosion and outlines why it is a threat to coastal lands and communities. Content is provided in a number of forms, as downloadable documents, via a comprehensive FAQ section as well as through the Newsfeed (see point 3).

      However, some of the content provided is too large (10MB and above), which can be cumbersome to download. We recommend providing this kind of content in the smallest size feasible for easy download and to not take up too much bandwidth.
    3. Use of the Newsfeed: The Newsfeed is being used to collate relevant articles from other websites making it a hub for regional news about coastal erosion. A great idea, which gives site visitors a reason to regularly return to check on the latest developments.
    4. Site look and feel: This project page looks and feels just right. The images match the tab colour, the background is subtle and there is a beautiful project banner.
    5. Promotion: We say this a lot - the best-designed projects don't necessarily receive the most engagement if they are not well promoted. Administrators need to be very active in promoting their consultations by any means available using corporate websites, social media, newsletter mailouts and traditional media such as local newspapers.

      The Western Bay of Plenty engagement team did a fantastic job of project promotion resulting in the second highest amount of page views upon launch for an EHQ site ever! The forum already contains a number of comments close to its launch date.

    For further consideration:

    1. Guestbook: Whilst most of the engagement tools currently being used on the site make sense, the Guestbook could have been left out. When using a Forum, the Guestbook becomes redundant as it is a stripped down version of a Forum and distracts the user unnecessarily.

    2. Project Image: The large measurement gage image is too large and doesn't match the area of the project description text. A smaller image or no image can work just as well and brings the tools further up the project page.

    OVERALL: Involving the community early in a project lifecycle is fantastic community engagement best practice. Doing so via a great-looking EngagementHQ project page is even better. This project has ticked both boxes and earned the title of this week's staff pick. Well done Western Bay of Plenty!

    NOTE: The above is based on a visit to the site on 16 November 2015. Changes made to the project after that date may have altered the appearance of the project.


Page last updated: 31 Jan 2017, 05:42 PM