Daily on Demand provides online audio-visual replays of the extracts of ACT Assembly proceedings which are requested by the user. This is a first for Australian parliaments. Indeed, it places the Assembly at the forefront of world legislatures in making parliamentary proceedings more relevant and accessible in a timely, contemporary and convenient way.
Unlike real-time internet webstreaming, Daily on Demand draws on its ever expanding database of Assembly proceedings to provide an archive that can be searched by subject, member’s name, and/or date and time of debate. Users enter one or some of these criteria via the interface and click the play arrow for an almost instantaneous audio-visual replay of the selected proceedings.
The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” perfectly encapsulates the impact of Daily on Demand. It is a technological evolution in that it cleverly combines, improves and capitalises on the Assembly’s ongoing investment in its digital recording and broadcasting infrastructure. But it is a business revolution in that it will shape the way that parliaments disseminate information on how they undertake their accountability and governance responsibilities.
Alternate versions
URL
http://on-demand.parliament.act.gov.au/
Established by
ACT Legislative Assembly
In collaboration with
InTACT
Started on
November 2009
Outcomes
Daily on Demand delivers audiovisual replay services to ACT Government users and the public.
The Assembly is engaging the community with Daily on Demand. Citizens have direct, fast access to the debates of their parliamentarians and can follow the ongoing discussion. For the community of professionals using the information, ministerial departments and media offices have searchable access to news of the day.
Daily on Demand has been designed to be easy for mums and dads, as well as professional researchers. You can get to the speech you’re after by choosing from the gallery of photos, or by searching the speeches with multiple queries.
The success of Daily on Demand demonstrates that excellence is attainable with the right team. The project required that few changes occur to the existing workflow of the Hansard people when collecting the data. As a demonstrator, the application was implemented to test whether a more immediate audiovisual access to parliament was desirable. The team worked with their existing users to determine their requirements and involve them in the excitement of the project. This early collaboration with our closest users amplified the need for a well-designed user-interface.
The application needed to emulate "The Blue", the daily schedule of business printed on blue paper. This format provided the entire day’s events and was a well known index to the speeches of the day. The same format of the "Recent Business" page helps the Assembly staff relate to the structure of the information, and helps adoption by "Blue" users.
Value for money. The project grew out of the existing live streaming infrastructure. The aim was to see what we could do without being too expensive, and within a reasonable budget for the timeframe. The Daily on Demand software development took eight person months, and was a fixed price contract with the developer.
The Legislative Assembly is very satisfied with the Daily on Demand project. Our team, working closely with the developer, has delivered an excellent result for our communities. We're pleased that this innovation in participatory democracy will bring further ideas on how parliaments can engage with their people.
Daily on Demand is a finalist in the AGIMO Excellence in ICT Awards 2010.
Addition details or information
The “Daily on Demand” application has undergone rigorous evaluation and consultation regarding accessibility and usability.
At the outset of the project the aim was to deliver a simple but robust web application for two primary user groups; ACT Government staff using the government intranet, and the general public via the internet. The successful use of video services on public internet connections needs attention to the delivery technologies used. A conceptual prototype was developed to test the speed at which the RTSP protocol can switch between video requests. We proceeded with RTSP due to the great utility this affords our end-users. Random access to different speeches is nearly instantaneous.
The user-interface of the application was specified in the project documentation before development began. The development team iterated several paper designs with Hansard staff for the navigation and nomenclature. Beta versions of the application were tested with internal and public users, and refined during final development.
Daily on Demand is designed to be accessible to a wide range of people using different computers, browsers and internet connection speeds. Primarily, the service needed to function well in the ACT Government browser, Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, Daily on Demand works well in Safari, Firefox and Chrome browsers.
The service adheres to WCAG 1.0 guidelines; All navigation elements are HTML and are labelled appropriately, and the design degrades gracefully in browser versions that are not supported. The links have been designed to be permanent, so users can use bookmarks to maintain consistency between usage sessions. The service has an introductory screencast designed to educate new users about the operation of the application.
Categories
Topics: Communication, Government, Information & Communications Technology, and Technology.
Types: Gov 2.0.
Jurisdictions: Australian Capital Territory and State.