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Helping citizens achieve their potential by providing access to 400,000 jobs and 500,000 training opportunities via the first natural language search facility in e-Government.
Worktrain, the UK's national jobs, learning and careers website, was developed jointly by the Department for Education and Employment, the Employment Service and Xansa. It transferred to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) following its launch in March 2001. This cross-government service integrates access to information already available and aggregates it for use by citizens looking for career opportunities and training. The UK is the first government to aggregate such information nationally and make it available on the web.
The challenge
In response to feedback from users, the DWP decided to enhance the service, both to widen the range of information available and to make it more personal and simpler to use. A great deal of emphasis was placed on the development of an intelligent user interface. The department wanted an entirely new user experience that was easier, richer and more functional while maintaining the previous quality of service. The aim was for visitors to find what they want in their own words.
The solution
Xansa was selected for its track record in delivery and innovation in software development, support and hosting services and because it continued to offer best value for money. Xansa's solutions architect recommended two key elements: first, a new search mechanism based on natural language and secondly, the proactive presentation of options for additional searches, based on criteria entered by the user.
The Xansa-developed search mechanism was delivered in association with the University of Sheffield's Natural Language Processing Group. The mechanism parses complete or fragmentary sentences and engages the user in a dialogue to find out what they want. Alternatively, from a single interaction it offers additional information which the user may not have considered.
This solution was extensively tested with a variety of techniques and by experts, including occupational psychologists, to ensure that it matches real users' needs, and went live in June 2004.
The benefits
Natural language searching now allows people to search a database of 500,000 jobs and over 500,000 learning opportunities using their own words - a first for a government e-service. Feedback from users confirms that the new site is simple to use, provides relevant information and responds more quickly to queries. Quantitative research indicates that average search times have fallen by between 25% and 50%. Since going live, Worktrain has been one of the top five most used government websites, attracting 600,000 page requests a day.
A combination of all of these benefits for citizens allow the DWP to achieve its objective of improving access to jobs, learning and careers information to the widest possible audience from a single web presence.
Award winning
The site has won several awards, including Government Computing's "Best Partnership Project in the Public Service" award in 2002 and a British Computer Society Award for Innovation in 2001
Visit the site at http://www.worktrain.gov.uk
"Xansa has played a pivotal role in the creation of a leading e-government service that we can be proud of and which has great potential for the future"
Graham Jack, Project Manager, Department for Work and Pensions