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SocietyWorks’ Head of Product, Bekki Leaver, provides some frank food for thought on the topic of using AI to fix potholes.

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There’s a lot of buzz about AI and how it’s going to fix the UK’s pothole issues by using clever software and cameras, even drones, to help authorities identify them automatically. 

It all sounds very impressive, and as someone working in tech and digital transformation, I am truly excited about the potential of new technologies. Using tech to make services more efficient and proactive sounds brilliant.

But here’s the thing: I do not believe pothole identification is the problem.

To improve anything, you have to start with the problem.

While, naturally, authorities can’t be everywhere at once, generally speaking they already know where the potholes are. Residents report them, sometimes with creative photoshoots to show how big the pothole is (banana for scale anyone?). Inspectors are out there checking roads. Platforms like FixMyStreet help map and visualise reports in real time. We have no shortage of pothole identification.

What we do have a shortage of is capacity to do anything about them. Enough people, time and funding to fix the things once they’re found.

Seeing more < doing more

Imagine going to the hospital with a broken leg. You know it’s broken, the physician knows it’s broken, everyone knows! But instead of treatment a consultant wheels out an expensive new machine that scans it in 4K from multiple angles and tells you exactly how broken it is, only for there to be no staff to actually put it in a cast. That’s not helpful! That’s just frustrating. And this is where we’re heading with “better identification tech”. We’ve got more awareness, but no resources to act, in a system already stretched to its limits.

Let’s be clear though, this isn’t about authorities responsible for fixing potholes not doing enough. Working in partnership with highways teams at authorities across the UK, we see them pulling off small miracles on a daily basis, trying to keep services running in the face of ever increasing demand and diminishing budgets. Where AI tools can help prioritise workloads, assist in predicting seasonal pressures, or just reduce the mountain of paperwork, I am all for it.

Digital transformations don’t start with shiny new tech, sensors or algorithms. They start with people. Unless the system has the resources and flexibility to use what technology finds, all we’re doing is giving exhausted teams more things to feel behind on.

If AI could help us fight the causes of potholes, then great – I’m all for it. In the meantime, surely the focus should be on tech helping frontline services do more with what resources they have, rather than see more?

After all, if you hit a pothole this week, you won’t care if it’s been beautifully scanned, categorised, and added to a dashboard somewhere; you’ll just want an easy way to see if it’s been reported already and for it to be fixed.

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Read more posts from the SocietyWorks team.

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Image taken by a member of the mySociety/SocietyWorks team and used with permission.

This blog post was written for techUK’s Social Value Week campaign in April 2025. 

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The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 initiated valuable shifts towards integrative procurement processes within Local Government. It encouraged purchasing decisions to be taken from a strategic perspective to deliver as much real value as possible to communities.

When approached purposefully and with the genuine alignment of values, partnerships between the public and private sectors can deliver value well beyond the specific product or service being contracted. Over time, such partnerships can increasingly generate impact across economic, social and environmental priorities.

However, generally speaking, there is still work to do to improve the implementation of social value procurement practices within Local Government to facilitate fairness, extend impact and ensure rigid, quantitative procurement processes do not lock local authorities out of the most socially responsible and valuable opportunities.

Social value as standard, not as an afterthought

As an SME belonging to the long-running civic technology charity mySociety, whose mission is to deliver technology for the public good, we hold a unique position in our understanding and delivery of social value.

From the charity’s perspective, we deliver technology (TheyWorkForYou; WhatDoTheyKnow; Council Climate Action Scorecards; Local Intelligence Hub, FixMyStreet etc.) to empower more people so that collaboratively we can build a fairer, safer future.

Meanwhile, from the commercial perspective, SocietyWorks builds on over 20 years of experience to deliver fairly-priced SaaS products (FixMyStreet Pro, WasteWorks, ApplyWorks, etc.) designed to help build trust between local authorities and residents, a crucial component of civic engagement and flourishing communities. Any profits made are reinvested into the charity to support the ongoing delivery of our charitable services.

In essence, social value is embedded in all that we do, and local authorities and other public sector organisations that choose to work with us unlock unique opportunities to play their part in supporting wider civic improvements across the UK, and even internationally.

On paper, we are exactly the kind of supplier any forward-thinking, technology-driven and socially conscious authority would want to partner with.

The impact of social value and the value of social impact

Despite delivering social value for longer than the Act itself has been in effect, and despite offering support for local economies through initiatives that harness the vast array of skills and specialised knowledge within our organisation, we often find that our internal definition of social value does not match up with that of local authority procurement teams.

Procurement frameworks often prioritise tangible, place-specific outcomes measured strictly in monetary terms, rather than considering broader societal impacts.

While local authorities appreciate working with us due to our values-based approach and our mission-driven ethos, rigid definitions within procurement processes occasionally categorise our charitable initiatives as ‘social impact’, limiting their recognition in formal evaluation criteria.

Another challenge we face as a fully-remote SME belonging to a not-for-profit group, is that we encounter procurement assessments primarily designed for significantly larger, locally-embedded suppliers, where the total absolute value quantified in sterling is the only lens through which social value is scored.

Set up in this way, procurement frameworks only measure social value in monetary terms, excluding the rich qualitative data that would illuminate true social value.

Getting better value for local authorities

By integrating qualitative assessments into procurement evaluations, local authorities could better recognise and reward innovative solutions that deliver significant societal benefits extending beyond immediate geographical boundaries.

Recognising the qualitative impact delivered by social enterprises like ours would ensure greater sustainability and effectiveness of community outcomes.

Ultimately, enhancing procurement frameworks to acknowledge the interconnected nature of social value can lead to stronger partnerships between local authorities and mission-led suppliers, maximising long-term societal benefits.

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Connect with Angela on LinkedIn or drop us a message to talk more about the social value we deliver.

Being a supplier of technology that sits at the frontend of public services, one of the key promises we make to our customers is that we will accommodate the need for changes made to any backend systems with which we integrate while keeping things consistent for members of the public. 

A recent example of this is the work we’ve been doing in collaboration with the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and the London Borough of Sutton. 

Both councils use our WasteWorks solution to manage online access to residential waste services and have been navigating a migration to a new version of their integrated in-cab system Echo.

In-cab integrations

For both councils, an API integration between WasteWorks and the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, used by the two councils’ waste provider Veolia, facilitates a two-way flow of data from council, to supplier, to resident and back again.

This enables residents to self-serve access to real-time data in order to:

• Check their bin days; 
• Monitor whether their bin has been collected yet;
• Find out why a collection was not taken;
• Report problems with collections; 
• Request new or extra containers; 
• Pay for subscriptions to green and bulky waste collections;
• And more according to the needs of the individual council.

As we do with any new integration, we worked in partnership with the teams at each council to map out the processes needed for sharing data to and from their new versions of Echo and test them out in staging.

Taking this approach means we can ensure everything works as expected so that, upon turning one integration off and turning the new one on, residents using the councils’ branded installations of WasteWorks are unaware anything has changed.

Adaptable technology

No two councils use WasteWorks or their integrated systems in exactly the same way – even ones that are neighbours and share the same in-cab system like Kingston and Sutton.

For Kingston, the integration with its updated installation of Echo incorporates a new pricing structure for new container requests. Payments for Kingston are facilitated via their integrated payment provider Capita Pay360.

A spokesperson at Kingston Council said: “We are ambitious in our plans to further enhance waste and recycling services while advancing our green credentials.

“Kingston has the fourth highest recycling rate in London, with over 840,000 collections taking place monthly.

“We are pleased to be continuing to work alongside WasteWorks to deliver an efficient and reliable service for our residents.”

Meanwhile, Sutton’s updated integration with Echo incorporates numerous other changes including the ability for residents to report a spillage incident or the misplacement of a bin following a collection.  

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Residential waste services require flexibility and we are very committed to providing it through WasteWorks. 

“I am proud that we have been able to support the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and the London Borough of Sutton through this changeover period, accommodating their individual needs while maintaining business as usual standards of service for residents.”

Off the back of some recent news stories which purported to use FixMyStreet data to denounce the worst places in the UK for potholes and other issues, Bekki Leaver, Head of Product, explains how FixMyStreet data can be used – and how it can’t.

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I read a book once called How to lie with statistics. It’s a short book with entertaining illustrations and anecdotes about misrepresenting the facts with fancy diagrams. 

The book has stuck with me for years and I am reminded of it often when I see reports and articles from sources unaffiliated with us that try to present a particular worldview based on the data they’ve sourced from our FixMyStreet service, such as where the worst roads in the UK are for potholes.

Data from FixMyStreet alone does not tell you this, and we do not condone the use of it for such purposes.

In my role as Head of Product, I spend a lot of time dealing with data from FixMyStreet, so I wanted to share some insight and bust some myths.

What is FixMyStreet data telling you?

FixMyStreet is a single data point. That data is incredibly useful to analyse in a great number of contexts, from exploring what is being reported in a certain area to who is reporting it. 

FixMyStreet report data creates a snapshot of civic engagement within the individual areas where it is well used.

For the councils who use FixMyStreet Pro, the data goes even further, giving insight into, for example, time from report to resolution, contractor service levels and localised seasonal trends.

The limitations of the data

However, on its own it cannot tell you where is better or worse for certain problems.

If you’re after the reality of the situation, you’ve got to triangulate. In other words, you’ve got to use multiple data sources to have credibility and trustworthiness in the results.

Research has shown that the user demographics for FixMyStreet tend to skew towards people living in the middle of the deprivation spectrum.

That’s not to say the spaces where those people live are in a higher state of disrepair than others; only that more people there are reporting more faults and defects to their council through FixMyStreet.

Why is this? To report a problem you have to A) have a problem B) know how to report a problem and C) have belief the problem will be fixed. A FixMyStreet report represents both “here is a problem” and “hope in a functional government”.

Other limitations include differences in categorisation (straight to potholes or through roads and pavements first?), variations in council participation (e.g. in some areas we are the primary reporting mechanism acting as the council’s own reporting system, whereas in others we run alongside other reporting channels, or sometimes councils refuse reports from third parties entirely) and we’re only a small part of the maintenance workflow, with inspectors and sensors doing a lot of the heavy lifting too.

Being data-savvy

Whenever you’re looking at a report or article that’s making a claim using data, consider the validity of that claim, especially if it’s in some way disparaging! 

Firstly, consider who benefits from it – that will help determine whether they’ve used data in good faith. 

Then see if they’re using more than one data source. If they are using multiple sources, check they’re recent and relevant. 

And if you’ve got the time and the desire, pick up a copy of How to lie with statistics and forever be a little bit cynical of what those statistics someone is presenting are telling you.

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See more posts from the SocietyWorks team.

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Image taken by a member of the mySociety/SocietyWorks team and used with permission.

At SocietyWorks we’re proud to have a small but incredible team of people using their skills and experience to support our public sector clients and help our parent charity mySociety achieve its ambitious objectives. 

In this series of blog posts, we speak to the people behind SocietyWorks to share their stories.

This time we’re chatting with Mandy Merron, Chair of the SocietyWorks board of directors.

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Mandy Merron became Chair of the SocietyWorks board of directors in January 2022. 

Like all of our board members, she gives her time and extensive expertise to SocietyWorks voluntarily. 

As well as being our Chair, Mandy also sits on the board of our parent charity mySociety as a Trustee. 

Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your career?

“Well, I trained as an accountant and then I moved into specialising in working with media, marketing and digital media businesses. 

“I spent over 30 years of my career working at Moore Kingston Smith. For most of that time I was advising businesses on how to grow and build value. More recently I set up a specialist mergers and acquisitions division of the media team.

“Also, I served on the board of the Data and Marketing Association for ten years and the Telephone Preference Service.

“In addition to sitting on the SocietyWorks and mySociety boards, I’m involved in various other things including sitting on the board of a local athletics club and a local primary school. I’m also a non-executive director for two other businesses.

“So although I’ve stepped back from full-time work now, I’m keeping busy but enjoying having a bit more time to play!

“I feel very lucky to work with some lovely people and to be able to help some very interesting organisations which in turn help me to continue to learn.”

As a not-for-profit group, it’s great for us to have someone with your financial and commercial background steering the board. What brought you to SocietyWorks?

“My journey here started when I joined the mySociety board as Treasurer. It’s a position that organisations often struggle to fill, but I’d worked with mySociety’s former Chief Executive Mark Cridge in the past, he knew my background and he invited me to take on the challenge.

“When the position of Chair came up on the SocietyWorks board I was very interested because of my history working with growing digital businesses, so I thought, yeah, I could probably help make a difference here!”

What’s it like being Chair of the SocietyWorks board?

“I see my role here as being the chief cheerleader and bouncer-of-ideas for the senior leadership team. My experiences mean I can be there for the ‘what-if’ scenarios. I’m a sounding board and a critical friend. 

“I can’t tell you how rewarding and exciting it is being on the SocietyWorks board. There’s a wonderful team here punching way above their weight, we have genuinely excellent products that bring about genuine impact for the public sector and it all supports the important work mySociety does.”

What are you hoping to achieve in your position on the SocietyWorks board?

“I suppose ultimately what I want to achieve is for SocietyWorks to reach its full potential, both in terms of what it can do for the public sector and in how it can support mySociety with unrestricted funding to fuel democracy technology that feels more necessary and relevant than ever.

“We share the same goals as our customers, and that’s a really important differentiator.  We’re not here just to make money, we have a purpose to extend the impact of mySociety and help the public sector better serve people through technology.” 

What does being a board member for a not-for-profit organisation mean to you?

“I think like most people who volunteer their time to help not-for-profit businesses grow, it’s about giving back. If you’ve got a skill, a growth mindset and the time, then why not?

“It’s not just a cliche of giving back, though. In all honesty, I have learnt and continue to learn exponentially from the teams at SocietyWorks and mySociety.

“What’s in it for me is a lot of new learning about civic society and civic tech, and on a more basic level, it makes you feel good to be doing something that’s not just for you. 

“There’s a podcast I listen to called The Happiness Podcast by Dr. Laurie Santos and on there is a lot discussion about how one of the things that makes people happy is doing things for other people – and I agree with that.”

Thinking about the challenges facing the public sector, how important is the work SocietyWorks does?

“Councils are under immense pressure to deliver all of the things that are required of them with depleting resources. 

“The fact that we can automate that delivery across different services in an incredibly user-friendly and reliable way, while reducing costs and freeing up resources, is game-changing, and I really do believe that we can and will do more to support councils in the future.” 

Thanks so much for talking to us, Mandy!

South Kesteven District Council is the latest local authority to adopt SocietyWorks’ FixMyStreet Pro solution as its online street and environment reporting service.

Taking advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s dedicated offering for district councils, which ensures districts only pay for the elements of the software they need, South Kesteven has invested in a fully branded, hosted and managed installation of FixMyStreet Pro.

“This platform not only streamlines reporting but also gives residents the chance to directly participate in the care and enhancement of their community.”

— Councillor Ashley Baxter, Leader of South Kesteven District Council

South Kesteven’s FixMyStreet Pro handles reports from members of the public about local street and environment issues, such as broken street lighting, fly-tipping and overflowing bins. 

Categories for issues that are the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council are also available for report-makers to select via the service. Reports within these categories will be automatically diverted to Lincolnshire, which also uses FixMyStreet Pro. 

Should a user attempt to make a report of a problem outside of South Kesteven or Lincolnshire’s boundary, the service will redirect them to the FixMyStreet site. 

As a map-based reporting solution, FixMyStreet Pro displays individual assets such as public bins and street lights to increase the accuracy of reports. 

In instances of crossover, where some assets are managed by South Kesteven and others are managed by Lincolnshire County Council, such as street lights, FixMyStreet Pro ensures that reports always go to the correct authority. 

Assets for South Kesteven are shared with FixMyStreet Pro directly from the Council’s map server.

Members of the public are able to view existing reports on the map and can subscribe to updates on any which are of interest. Updates on the progress of reports are sent via email to the report-maker and to any other subscribers. 

South Kesteven can make use of FixMyStreet Pro’s comprehensive case management tools, including response templates and site-wide messaging to help manage expectations and divert emergencies.

Additionally, FixMyStreet Pro suggests potential duplicates to users at the point of making a report and encourages them to subscribe to the existing report to help reduce unnecessary contact. 

Leader of South Kesteven District Council, Councillor Ashley Baxter, said: “Many of our residents are already familiar with using FixMyStreet to report county council issues such as potholes and flooding.

“They can now use the same platform to report issues to South Kesteven District Council including fly-tipping, graffiti and dead wildlife.

“We are delighted to introduce FixMyStreet technology to residents of South Kesteven. This platform not only streamlines reporting but also gives residents the chance to directly participate in the care and enhancement of their community.

“By making it easier to report concerns, we are ensuring that every voice is heard, and that every contribution helps keep the district safe, clean and well maintained.

“I would personally encourage anyone who spots any issues to explore FixMyStreet and take an active role in shaping their local environment.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “It is wonderful to welcome South Kesteven District Council into our community of FixMyStreet Pro users, which already includes Lincolnshire County Council. 

“Our vision for FixMyStreet Pro has always been to enable councils to provide a truly united reporting service that meets each authority’s different needs. We are excited to see the impact the technology will have for South Kesteven.” 

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro.

We live in an era in which many of us reach for our smartphones first to find the answer to a question like “when is my bin being collected?” or “how do I report a pothole?”. 

Local governments and other public sector organisations face the challenge of ensuring they keep up with expectations to provide easy and intuitive digital access to their services, and to do so in an accessible and cost-effective way. 

Dedicated, standalone apps (ie. those that run from their own codebase) are often chosen as the perfect solution, because everyone likes an app, right?

Well, actually no. According to research we carried out with YouGov in 2022, only 22% of citizens want to use an app they have to download to contact their local authority.

In our two decades of experience providing high-traffic digital services for members of the public, we believe that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) present a more efficient and inclusive alternative.

What are PWAs?

PWAs are websites that have been designed with ‘app like’ qualities. 

They look and act like an app and they can be downloaded to a mobile’s home screen like an app, but they run from the same codebase as your website, removing barriers to access and enabling you to provide exactly the same experience to users across your online environment at no extra cost.

Why are PWAs a good choice for the public sector?

Accessibility for all

PWAs work on any device with a web browser, eliminating the need for users to download and install an app in order to access a service. This is particularly important in the public sector, where digital services must be accessible to everyone, regardless of their device type or storage limitations.

Cost-effective development and maintenance

Building and maintaining separate iOS and Android apps is expensive and resource-intensive. PWAs streamline development by using a single codebase that works across platforms, reducing costs and simplifying updates.

No app store barriers

Because PWAs run from the same codebase as your web service and can be saved to home screens directly instead of downloaded via an app store, you can ensure faster deployment and updates whenever you need to make a change. 

Increased visibility

Another benefit of using PWAs is that your service will appear in search engine results, making it easier for members of the public to find what they need when starting from an online search. 

Offline functionality and performance

PWAs permit offline capability to your website, by downloading a bit of JavaScript (called a service worker) to your device. This means people can, for example, start reports on-the-go without internet connection, and finish them later when back online. This is particularly beneficial for remote communities or frontline contractors who need to access services even in low-connectivity environments.

Security and compliance

Where a digital public service handles potentially sensitive data, PWAs leverage HTTPS protocols for secure communications, reducing risks associated with app store vulnerabilities while maintaining compliance with security standards.

The future of public sector digital services

By adopting PWAs, local governments and other public sector organisations can provide fast, reliable and cost-effective digital services to a broader audience. 

As governments strive for digital inclusivity and efficiency, PWAs offer a forward-thinking solution that prioritises accessibility, security and seamless user experiences.

For local governments and the wider public sector, embracing PWAs is a strategic move towards a more accessible and efficient public service landscape.

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All of SocietyWorks’ solutions are designed as PWAs . Get in touch to find out more. 

Parish and town councils wanting to keep track of reports made via FixMyStreet within their ward boundary can make use of FixMyStreet’s new parish-level email alerts and RSS feed. 

The FixMyStreet email alerts and RSS feed functionality enables users to subscribe to alerts for reports made within a certain area or that go to a certain destination, the latter of which only included upper tier authorities until recently. 

The new parish level alerts give local people and councillors the ability to stay informed of what’s happening in the community, subscribing to be notified of issues reported within their parish.

To set up an email or RSS alert feed, users can go to the ‘Local alerts’ page from the main menu, or click ‘Get updates of problems in this council’ from any ‘All reports’ page.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Creating a snapshot of communities is among the things FixMyStreet does best, and I am delighted that we are able to offer parishes better access to data on what’s happening within their boundary. 

“The new email alerts and RSS feed for parishes is only the start of a drive to make more of FixMyStreet’s functionality available to all levels of local authority.”

There are more developments underway to further extend the functionality of FixMyStreet to parish councils, building upon the existing functionality created for our unitary FixMyStreet Pro users to provide better shared reporting for devolved services. 

For more information about FixMyStreet or FixMyStreet Pro, please get in touch. 

A new integration has been completed between Bristol City Council’s installation of FixMyStreet Pro and their Alloy asset management system.

The integration enables reports relating to street cleansing issues made via Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro service and those made via the national FixMyStreet site to be sent directly into Alloy, along with accurate map location data and supporting information.

With both systems connected via an API, any updates or status changes made by authorised council staff or contractors to street cleansing reports in Alloy can be sent back to report-makers, as well as to anyone subscribed to the report, helping to close the feedback loop and manage expectations. 

Likewise, any updates made to reports by users on FixMyStreet or Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro are shared back to Alloy. 

Councillor Martin Fodor, Chair of the Environment and Sustainability Committee at Bristol City Council, said: “We’re delighted that this new integration will enable Bristol City Council to deliver a more comprehensive service for residents via FixMyStreet.

“Securing greater communication between FixMyStreet and council services will allow people to report street scene issues directly into our systems, meaning jobs are sent to the appropriate team quickly with a higher degree of accuracy, and with jobs not for the council making their way to the right organisation.

“These improvements to the council’s FixMyStreet integration and processes should result in residents seeing a difference made to the cleanliness of Bristol’s streets.”

In control of integrations

For non-street cleansing issues, there is an existing integration in place for Bristol, historically set-up and run by the council using an open standard endpoint which provides a two-way flow of such reports into and out of their Confirm highways asset management system. 

The addition of the Alloy integration for street cleansing issues is a great example of how councils can connect with FixMyStreet in different ways to best suit their needs and service areas – either by having us manage an integration for them, setting it up themselves, or, like Bristol, doing a bit of both!

Reports are triaged by FixMyStreet according to their location and category. 

In addition to triaging between Bristol’s own systems, the software also recognises when an issue is not the responsibility of the council and diverts reports accordingly, either by sending them directly to another FixMyStreet Pro-using authority (including National Highways) or by redirecting the user to the national FixMyStreet site.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Interoperability is a core element of our proposition to the public sector.

“We are really pleased to be supporting Bristol City Council as they take advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s flexibility and integrate it with another of their systems to make managing street cleansing reports easier and more efficient.”

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro.

Our front-end designer Lucas Cumsille Montesinos highlights some of the work he’s been doing recently to make FixMyStreet and all integrated co-branded versions of the service running on FixMyStreet Pro more accessible.

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Over the past year we have been collaborating with users of FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro to enhance the solution’s accessibility, making improvements to the user experience for people using assistive devices. 

One of our clients, Transport for London (TfL), shared an accessibility audit of their installation of FixMyStreet Pro with us. The document listed issues detailing information regarding the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and some improvements that could be applied.

Here are some of the points they shared with us:

• Description of the issue.
• Level success criteria using the WCAG standard: Level A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest).
• A link to the page and location of the component where the issue can be found, along with instructions for replicating the problem if necessary.
• Status of the issue: Pass, Pass with comments, N/A, Fail.
• They also provided recommendations made by the auditor.

What improvements did we make?

The report from TfL allowed us to work on different areas of improvement, for example:

• Meaningful Sequence: We focused on making the order in which assistive devices present the information match the order in which the page is visually presented.
• Non-text Content: We hid purely decorative elements from screen readers, reducing unnecessary clutter for users when navigating the site.
• Info and Relationships: We improved and updated the role and attributes of some HTML elements so assistive devices can better understand the context and how to use those elements.
• Focus Order: When someone is tabbing through a website (using their keyboard instead of a mouse), everything should flow naturally and make sense. It’s making sure that when you hop from one thing to the next, the order matches how you’d understand the content – no jumping around to random spots that leave you scratching your head.

What did we learn?

• Include the WCAG conformance level (from A to AAA), where level A is the minimum. Ideally, you would like the website you are working on to comply with all Level AA success criteria. Using the conformance level makes it easier for you to prioritise which issues should be tackled first and which ones can be done later.
• Some issues won’t require a lot of time to fix. This can be your second factor when it comes to prioritising which improvements to make first. For example, easy fixes like adding aria-labels or increasing the contrast between the text and the background colour can be done in little time and greatly improves the user experience of your website.
• If you find an accessibility issue, always try to provide as much detail as possible, especially if someone else will be doing the work to fix it. The TfL document made solving the issues much faster and minimised any back-and-forth. Even sharing which browser you were using when experiencing the error can make a difference.
• One of the most interesting experiences was solving issues that didn’t seem like an issue (at the time), but once you deprive yourself of literally looking at the screen and using an assistive device, then the problem starts making sense. For example, the action of a button can make sense when you are looking at the screen and the elements that are surrounding it, but if you can’t see the context, the elements around the button, then the button might not make much sense. Adding further instructions like an aria-label that provide the context that the eyes are missing can help users understand where they are and what they can do much better.
• Finally, it is a great exercise to be more conscious when designing a website. Yes, a certain text, link, or button colour can look great, but can it be read easily? What about colourblind users? You can install plugins in your browser to help you see the page the way they would see it.

Our accessibility improvements were rolled out to the national FixMyStreet site and all co-branded FixMyStreet Pro sites. However it is worth noting that FixMyStreet Pro is designed to accommodate the branding and styling of each authority that uses it, which can mean that some of our accessible default settings are overridden. This is why we always recommend that authorities carry out an accessibility audit on their own services.

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Thanks for sharing, Lucas!

Read more about how we design accessible digital services, or browse more posts from the SocietyWorks team.