The FCDO's digital work
11th November 2014 London, UK
Some beautiful photos from the latest round of Chevening user testing, and what we learned from the latest cohort of scholars On Saturday 25 October, the latest cohort of Chevening scholars were invited to an orientation event: a day’s activities welcoming them to the UK and helping them settle in. At the end of the […]
Read more on Further adventures testing the Chevening application system | Reply
2nd October 2014 London, UK
Last week, the FCO held its first ever Digital Week: a concentrated effort to show our staff how digital tools and technologies can transform our policy-making, service delivery and communications. We organised a busy programme of talks, masterclasses, digital clinics and competitions, delivered both in our London HQ and around our global network. So what […]
26th September 2014 London, UK
It’s not always easy to promote human rights in China. But people do care. In particular, our statements supporting LGBT rights always achieve a great deal of attention, most of which is very positive. This is despite China refusing to legally recognise same-sex couples and homosexuals face widespread stigma. On 6 September, Brian Davidson, our […]
15th September 2014 London, UK
This is the last in a series of three blog posts discussing the discovery phase for our consular appointments transformation. See the posts on who, what, how and identifying user needs. As part of our discovery phase for the consular appointments service, having done a fair amount of navel gazing we also wanted to look at […]
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2nd September 2014 London, UK
Dr Richard Smith reveals an exciting new Twitter project by the FCO Historians In 1914 Sir Francis Bertie held the plum posting in the British Diplomatic Service—the ambassadorship to Paris. Not only did it carry a yearly salary of £11,500 (the Foreign Secretary was paid just £5,000) but the Ambassador also got to live at […]
1st September 2014 London, UK
Hello there, I’m Phil Buckley, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office, and I wanted to tell you about the unusual and fun challenges faced when testing the new application form for the Chevening Scholarship programme. How did we test? Before we started the design of the new system, we were lucky enough to […]
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29th August 2014 London, UK
Maps of the online landscape can provide fascinating insights into how they are connected and how they interact. In my last blog I looked at a few of our Ambassadors’ accounts and found some of the communities that existed amongst their followers. This blog looks at the way maps of the online conversation can help […]
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27th August 2014 London, UK
Armed with the background data on who books appointments and how, in this post I’ll look at what we’ve learned about user needs and the improvements we would like to make in the new service. Over the past 2 to 3 years our consular teams around the world have gradually adopted a third party website […]
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18th August 2014 London, UK
Hi, I’m Mark, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office. I’m working on a new service for booking consular appointments, and would like to share the findings of the discovery phase. As my colleague Phil has described previously, the FCO offers a range of services to the public, many of which are delivered at […]
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15th August 2014 London, UK
On the first floor of the Foreign Office main building, civil servants used to pull down maps from a burr walnut cabinet to pore over them and discuss the latest news from our embassies. Whilst the original maps have long ago been shipped off to The National Archives, the Foreign Office’s love of a good […]