Since the website zh.ch went live in 2020 in collaboration with Zeix and One Inside, it has seen continual development. The goal is to keep the population informed on goals, strategy and implementation not just at the beginning or end of a legislative period, but continuously and in a readily understandable manner.
Information on goals and measures is illustrated with images to support better the democratic values of the canton of Zurich and Switzerland. Unic developed the concept, design and image concept and supported the implementation, together with Zeix. How? Find out more in this post.
Goals, Measures and Implementation
What are the short-term and long-term goals of the Cantonal Council of the canton of Zurich? What measures are being taken to achieve these goals? And what is the current status of the implementation? In the past, getting these questions answered required a lot of patience: The goals were published at the beginning of a legislative period, at the end there was a report, and both were published as PDF files.
The problem was that it was a lot of information – most of it phrased in a way that average residents could not or only barely understand.
To change that, the Council set up the website for the Legislative Goals 2023 – 2027, which makes the content in German available in a digital format. It is divided into the following topical sections (all links lead to German sites):
For every topic, the legislative goal and long-term goals are presented in comprehensible language. The main topic is introduced with an image, which reflects the dynamic development in visual language: Many things appear unclear at first glance – they become clearer over time, just like the implementation of the legislative goals.
So, at the beginning of the legislative period, the images were purposely blurry. As the implementation of the measures progresses, the images will become clearer. It pays off to visit the website from time to time, not just for the content, but also for the visuals.
Unlike in the past, however, there is more than just before and after:
The Measures section lists 59 entries with their current statuses. These will be updated regularly. For many of them, this means an update after the publication of the annual report in 2024.
Depending on what residents are interested in, they can now filter for legislative goals and measures and track specific topics.
Fabian Oehler, Project Owner at Unic explains:
“The concept supports the canton in its efforts to make long-term, mid-term and short-term political goals visible. It creates transparency and enables the administration to showcase how far they have come with their implementation throughout their term.
Our image concept supports this increasing clarity with images that are not fully visible at first but become clearer and more complete over time. The images depict people from the canton of Zurich in day-to-day situations.”
For him, the briefing for the photographer and the implementation of the chosen pictures were particularly fascinating. All image rights were transferred to the canton.
Dr Thomas Bürgi, Head of Controlling, Cantonal Council, with whom we developed the concept for the platform, was delighted with the result:
Transparency is a value that is in high demand with our residents. That is why we want to make it as easy as possible for them to find out more about topics that are close to their hearts. In the newly created section for legislative goals, we can visualise the progress of measures taken in a comprehensible way. Not just for the politicians involved, but also for the public.
Dr. Thomas Bürgi, Head of Controlling, Cantonal Council
Contact for your Digital Solution
Book an appointmentAre you keen to talk about your next project? We will be happy exchange ideas with you: Melanie Klühe, Stefanie Berger, Stephan Handschin and Philippe Surber (clockwise).
