Data Observatory WordPress Theme Summer 2025 Update – Release Notes

Overview

This update of the Data Observatory WordPress theme incudes enhancements to the Quick Ward Profile search and the statistics chart widgets on the homepage. We also used this release to tidy page templates and address several bugs.

Important: We will roll out these changes to individual customer websites over the coming weeks. Hence the changes might not be immediately visible in your site.

Please note that the enhancements and bug fixes listed below apply to the standard setup of our Data Observatory offering. If your site has been customised, it might be that not all of the described changes are visible.

Key enhancements

Quick Ward Profile search

  • On the home page, the Quick Ward Profile search field has gained a search button to improve user experience and accessibility.
  • It is now possible to search by Ward names as well as postcodes to create a Quick Ward Profile.
  • A filter can be applied to ensure that only postcodes or Ward names that fall within a particular area (usually the Local Authority) will be accepted before loading the report.

Other enhancements

  • Categories pages (created by WordPress on-the-fly, showing all posts or pages assigned to a specific category)  have gained a more pleasing default layout. This can be further adjusted using custom CSS.
  • Page templates we added to the theme have been renamed to replace ‘InstantAtlas’ with ‘Esri UK Data Observatory’ in line with the New Branding for National Data Service and Data Observatory.
  • The padding around the statistics charts on the homepage has been reduced to create a more pleasing look-and-feel.
  • It is now possible to apply a linear scale to the y-axis of the statistics charts on the homepage. If you are interested in this being applied to your site, please log a case using My Esri.
  • Obsolete EditURI / xmlrpc.php links have been removed from page heads in the HTML.

Key bug fixes

  • Map pop-ups have been disabled for the homepage map. They used to show after certain user workflows, covering most of the map.
  • The ‘InstantAtlas – Sub-Level – Blank’ page template  (now called ‘Esri UK Data Observatory – Sub-Level – Blank’) no longer causes content located after headings formatted as ‘Heading 2’ to collapse in an accordion style.
  • The ‘InstantAtlas – Sub-Level – Content’ page template (now called ‘Esri UK Data Observatory – Sub-Level – Content’) no longer causes long URLs and slow page loads when the page is a child of one of our core themes.
  • Accessibility issues related to ARIA attributes and ARIA landmarks the have been addressed.