How to update GovWifi content
For each type of content that makes up the GovWifi service, this page explains what it is, who is responsible for it and how to update it.
Product pages
What
The product pages contain information for end users about how to connect to GovWifi and troubleshoot any problems they’re having.
Here’s the product pages repo. They’re written in Ruby.
Who
A content designer should be responsible for updates to the product pages.
How
To update the content, you can either write your updates in a Google doc and give it to a developer, or do it yourself.
If you’re happy doing things yourself, follow the instructions on the repo to run the pages locally, make your changes and preview them. You’ll need a dev build laptop to do this.
When you’ve raised the PR for your changes, get a review from a developer and a content person. There will be a button on the PR page that says ‘view deployment’ which lets people see your changes.
Ask a developer if you need help.
There’s a Google datastudio dashboard to see how these pages are performing.
Technical documentation
What
The technical documentation includes an overview of what GovWifi is, and instructions on how to set up and manage GovWifi for organisations.
Here’s the tech docs repo. The code is based on the tech docs template owned by the technical writers. You can edit the content using Markdown.
Who
A technical writer or content designer should be responsible for any updates to the tech docs.
How
There are two ways to update it depending what you need to do:
- to make big or structural changes, follow the instructions on the repo to run the pages locally, make your changes and preview them
- to make smaller changes, you can just make the changes in Github and you’ll still get a good sense of what they’ll look like
If the team does not have a technical writer, get a 2i from one if you can.
Ask a developer if you need help. Use the Govspeak preview app if you need help with Markdown.
There’s a Google data studio dashboard to see how these pages are performing.
GovWifi admin
What
GovWifi admin is where admin users can set up GovWifi for their organisation and view user logs.
This is GovWifi admin (production). This is GovWifi admin (staging).
Here’s the GovWifi admin repo. It’s written in Ruby.
Who
A content designer should be responsible for any updates to the content in GovWifi admin - usually with help from an interaction designer.
How
To update the content, plan your updates in a Google doc or Figma (or however else you prefer). There’s a Figma version of the admin site that you might find it helpful to draft your edits in.
Then, depending how big your changes are, give them to a developer or make them yourself.
If you can make the changes yourself, follow the instructions on the repo to run the pages locally, make your changes and preview them. You’ll need a dev build laptop to do this.
When you’ve raised the PR for your changes, get a review from a developer and a designer or content person, depending on the change.
Texts and emails
What
The texts and emails live in the two GovWifi Notify accounts - GovWifi Notify (production) and GovWifi Notify (staging).
Edit and test your messages from the staging account first.
Who
A content designer should do any updates to the texts and emails if they’re part of the GovWifi service journey. A content designer and engagement lead or product manager should be responsible for comms. Other roles may sometimes need to use Notify too - for example the user researcher may need to send out a survey.
How
Once you’re added to the GovWifi Notify account, you can create text and email templates in it. You should be added to both staging and production accounts, so you can test your messages in staging first.
In both cases, follow the Notify documentation and the Service Manual guidance on writing texts and emails.
When writing texts:
- keep them as short as possible due to the character count and charge per text message - you can see the character count and associated charge in Notify, and here’s the pricing information
- bear in mind you cannot do much formatting except keyboard characters
- always test on a phone and with assistive tech on a phone - for example, inbuilt screen readers may read out content differently to desktop ones, and screen magnification may cut off words in a confusing way (for example, users may interpret passwords as having a space in the middle)
When writing emails:
- make the subject line informative so users can get the key messages from it
- we can segment the audience based to some extent - ask the developers to pull the list of users’ email addresses from the database and ask if they can filter it to your needs
- you don’t need to worry about the volume or pricing, because sending emails is free
- consider whether you need to post the content in the #govwifi cross-gov Slack channel too (usually a good idea if it’s a comms email and you’ve segmented the mailing list somehow)
Once your texts or emails are sent, you can see how many people they were successfully delivered too.
There are also some analytics in Notify, such as how many times each of your templates have been sent over different time periods.
Organisation lists
There are several organisation lists, these are used to show which admins have setup GovWifi, which organisations allowed to sign up and a public list of organisations. There’s further guidance in the team manual on how these work and who can edit them.
User support macros
What
User support macros are template responses that the team can use to respond to common support questions quickly. They’re stored in Zendesk.
Who
A content designer should do any updates to the user support macros. The team can then adjust the content as needed depending on the question they’re replying to.
How
Once you’ve been added to the GovWifi second line view on Zendesk:
- Select the ‘settings’ cog icon in the menu sidebar.
- Select ‘Macros’ in the sidebar.
- Change the ‘All shared macros’ option to ‘2nd/3rd line–GovWiFi’.
- From there, you can go into each macro you want to update and edit it.
If you cannot edit anything, you need to get permission. A delivery manager or the user support team will be able to sort this for you.
When you add a new macro, add 2 tags:
- one in the format ‘govwifi-[enduser or adminuser]-[macro description]’
- one in the format ‘m_[the long number after the / in the page URL]’
This makes sure we can track how often we use each macro over time in the Zendesk analytics dashboard.