1. Our new editorial standards
Style.ONS
Our new editorial standards

2. Development
Existing standards “out-of-date, inconsistent, and poorly presented”
Print, not digital by default
Agile
Living document
Our challenge was to launch new editorial standards for the organisation. This came from the background of:
uncertainties for staff about what standards to use
original standards for print and not for digital
not subject to any review – remaining static
inconsistencies with wider Government standards used on GOV.UK
First 2 completed and last 2 being completed by May 2015.
The delivery of content has been done in an Agile way: developing content and releasing it in small sections which were subject to user feedback. Iterative process.
The standards will therefore be a living document, which will be updated as and when changes are needed.

3. The Times, 30 March 2015
Comment from the Treasury about a lack of house style being implemented

4. Interactives and infographics
4 stages
Phase 1
Release calendar
Phase 3
Tables and charts
Phase 2
Text
Phase 4
Interactives and infographics
4 stages of development:
release calendar (released Oct 2014)
Writing (released Feb 2015)
table and charts (to be released May 2015)
infographics and interactives (to be released May 2015)

5. Working with GDS How do GDS work? Collaborating for a year
Content design and editorial best practice
Linked to from GOV.UK
Blog
GOV.UK won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award for GOV.UK website, described as “simple, direct, well mannered”. Wanted to jump on the back of GOV.UK groundwork.
GDS have transitioned 144 public agencies and government bodies onto GOV.UK, so they need a clear editorial voice and style.
Working with them on the release calendar project was ideal time to combine forces to develop statistical standards. All of their standards are based on content design and editorial best practice:
We developed drafts of each stage, shared them with GDS and honed them between ourselves in a team of 4. Data Vis are taking the lead on Phase 3.
Currently writing a blog for GOV.UK about the development of the standards and they will link to Style.ONS from GOV.UK. We are their best practice for writing about statistics.

6. Developing Style.ONS Originally traditional print book
PST built, developed and migrated content
User research in ONS and GSS
Cardsorts and Treejacks
Simple CMS
No print version but print PDF function
Style.ONS is a customised Wordpress site, built specially to house the Style Guide. Team of 2 worked on build, development and we helped with migration. Minimum viable product with changes being made as it is live. Limited access to the CMS ensures QA.
Bouts of user testing, involving Treejacks and Card Sorting tests. These allow us to see the most intuitive navigation for users, and make sure information is easily accessible.
Cardsorts ask users to sort all of the subjects into intuitive groups.
Treejacks ask users to find certain subjects by asking for example “if you were writing about millions, where would you go?”.
Treejack example on next slide
We added the option to print a PDF version, instead of producing a traditional print versions. We have an updates page which shows what has been changed recently to make sure that users can update pages of their printed PDF and not all simply a new version. This saves the organisation money and is much easier for users.
Launched 13 Feb 2015

7. Treejack
An example of the results we received from the Treejack tests – shows other places users thought the topic would sit.

8. Prioritisation
Using Trello for prioritisation of development needs and to track what is left to do for meetings.

9. Feedback
Overwhelmed with good feedback via Twitter and from across the world. Link from O’Reilly blog.
Publicised on the statistical content community and government content community on Basecamp, and the GSS website.
45% of traffic is from returning visitors up to 21/04/15, 5241 sessions between Feb 13 and Apr 20, with 3031 users. Biggest users in terms of European countries aside from UK: Russia, Germany, Spain, Norway and France

10. To do Data Vis phases 3a and 3b (April 2015) Proofreading (April 2015)
Editing (April 2015)
References (April 2015)
Anything else that user feedback indicates
What is left for us to produce for the style guide?

11. Any questions?