The UK Government’s Coronavirus Dashboard is being updated. It will include a postcode search function and an easy read format document of the latest case updates.
The development of the dashboard is unusually open for a government project with the updates on a publicly available experimental website that invites feedback from users before making it to the full live dashboard.
The postcode search function lets you see the daily updates at local level for cases. Regional data is used for deaths and hospitalisations.
It also shows your neighbourhood’s infection rate compared to the national average.
In the new dashboard, which is available on the experimental website, the developers have also included the daily coronavirus update in Easy Read format.
Easy Read is a communication method designed to make information more accessible to those with difficulty reading. It uses large text and illustrating key sentences with images and icons is encouraged.
The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities told InterHacktives: “It is important for government to produce information in accessible formats for its audience, for example, in Scotland and Wales their leaders have had a signer in their messages. Similarly simple to understand English is so important for not just people with learning disabilities but also people whose first language is not English and others who may not be able to access complicated language.”
The UK government encourages all departments to make their publications accessible.
The dashboard has also had to undergo several improvements to its backend in the last couple of weeks due to increased demand. An engineer who works on the dashboard tweeted that in the 24-hour period up to the 15th of October the dashboard transmitted over 3 terabytes of data.
Some users were initially not happy that the updated coronavirus dashboard did not include data from all of the devolved administrations. This has now been fixed.
In amongst the usual coronavirus conspiracy theories in the replies to any COVID-19 tweet, the reaction to the update was good.