In May 2021, the  District Commissioners moved its website to Ísland.is and closed the website to syslumenn.is. The project spanned 4 months and at last, all the content on the web was examined based on the needs of the users. A new landing page for the organization was designed and set up on Ísland.is.

One could say that the content work was twofold, to include information on:

• the services of the District Commissioners for Ísland.is architecture.

• the officials of the  District Commissioners for the island.is/s/syslumenn on their landing page.

Workshops

In the range of 60-70 workshops were held with  District Commissioners staff to review the material relating to the services they provide. The services of the magistrates are extensive and often involve complex and sensitive matters, e.g. divorce, custody, estates and other matters.

Each workshop was attended by a service representative from the District Commissioners and their specialist on the subject. A member of Stefna's staff led the workshop and assisted with text writing. Because of Covid, all the workshops were held using teleconferencing.

The purpose of each workshop was to

• review the text on the web

• examine questions received from users by the helpdesk

• view discussions and use of words on the subject on social media

• define user groups and user needs

• plot the user's process through the service when appropriate

Text writing

After each workshop, a copy writer was selected from the team of specialists . Each article in the on Ísland.is aimed to answer a defined user need in a clear and concise manner, with the vocabulary that people use and a descriptive header that helps people find and screen the material quickly and efficiently.

Example:

The District Commissioners handle various types of advice and legal matters related to adoption. The workshop on this topic defined these user groups with the following user requirements:

• Adoption of a stepchild under the age of 18

• Adoption of stepchild over 18 years of age

• Adoption of foster children

• Adoption of a child from abroad

• International family adoption

• Confirmation of foreign adoption

As is seen, the needs of users to this issue are diverse and it is clear that one general article on adoption would not meet any of them sufficiently. Ísland.is today therefore has several focused articles that respond to these user needs.

The image shows an example of the change that occurred in the text about Inset, once you reviewed it for user needs.

Partners

About 40 legal representatives from the District Commissioners and specialists worked on the project lead by Stefna and Digital Iceland. The workshops were the focus of many discussions and reviews, as well as considerable learning and knowledge, which had developed among the participating professionals.