Safer Politics
Abuse and intimidation in public life are on the rise. Safer Politics gives local politicians and their staff toolkits and training on staying safe online. We designed and built it with DigiPol and the LGA, for an audience that’s busy and mostly non-technical.
Client: DigiPol
Sector: Education
Services: Strategy, Design, Development
Helping local politicians and their staff stay safe online
Safer Politics is a UK initiative developed in partnership with DigiPol, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Jo Cox Foundation. It teaches local politicians and their teams how to stay safe online, with practical guidance and training modules, at a time when abuse and intimidation in public life are getting worse.
It’s a serious subject, and our job was to build a site that takes it seriously without being heavy going. Councillors are busy people, so the learning had to be clear, well organised and easy to fit around everything else they do.
A design job more than a technical one
There’s no clever technology at the centre of this project. The hard part was getting vital information in front of people with very little time, without overwhelming them. So the design is bold and highly accessible, the navigation is obvious, and the pages are laid out to be scanned quickly and put to use.
The look steers well clear of anything party-political. We used strong type, bright but balanced colour and high-contrast layouts to make the content inviting and easy to digest, which matters all the more for people with accessibility needs.
Toolkits and training
The main event is a set of toolkits and training modules on things like digital hygiene, boundaries on social media, handling abuse and keeping staff safe. They’re made to be used: downloadable guides, step-by-step checklists and short videos.
We worked closely with DigiPol, the LGA and the Jo Cox Foundation on how the content was structured and how it sounded. One question guided every decision: how do we help people stay safe without adding to their workload?
Quick, light and easy to edit
The technology is deliberately light, and built for speed and reliability. The site runs on Statamic, one of our favourite content management systems, so editors can update modules, add toolkits and refresh the guidance as it changes without needing a developer. The training modules themselves were built in iSpring, an LMS tool for making structured, interactive courses, and they sit right inside the site.
Everything was designed to meet WCAG accessibility standards, and it works as well on a phone between meetings as it does on a council office desktop.
