Saint Paul Public Works -

Saint Paul Public Works -

Content design and user testing for a public sector utilities website

Overview

Product

The City of St. Paul Public Works (SPPW) department requested help on evaluating their website and understanding the usability aspect of it. 

SPPW had already done some work to better understand users’ mental models of how the site is organized, as well as plans to continue their efforts prior to any redesign. They were looking for me to augment this process and provide some additional insights.

Context

When I joined this project, the St. Paul Public Works had done their own internal work on the website and they needed external feedback on usability. 

After looking at the site initially, there were still some understandability issues. My role was to analyze this and make some recommendations.

Goals

Evaluate the usability of the platform, identify key areas for improvement, and visualize recommended changes.

Research methods

  • Heuristic analysis

  • Usability testing

“I’m confused.”

- Key word in six out of six user interviews

“Too much to scan…the photos and amount of text are distracting.”

“I’m hitting a wall.”

“There is so much information [on each page]. Some is strange and needs organization.”

-

Research

Method 1 - Heuristic Analysis

I started the research for the Saint Paul Public Works website with a heuristic analysis to try to get a first impression of the usability. I tested some basic tasks and tried to figure out the happy path to them. 

My heuristic analysis led me to think that we have an accessibility issue in the hierarchy of information that needs to be more organized. This consistency would make the website more user friendly. 

This allowed us to choose tasks to test for the usability testing in Method 2 (see below). 

Method 2 - Usability Testing

I made user testing with a sample of five users who live in the Twin Cities and listened to their feedback. The goal was to see their first impression of the tasks of the St. Paul Public Works needed feedback on. 

The user types included hobbyists (who may have special types of waste like wood), single family home dwellers, and apartment dwellers. The users interviewed didn’t know anything about the website and I saw their first impressions and we had some behavioral analysis. 



Overload of information

Users were overwhelmed by the amount of information on each page and had to use Google search in 6 out of 6 interviews for at least one task to find what they wanted. 

Users Google or search to avoid going through task flow

Users Googled the inquiry instead of going through the site flow. 

In the testing, testers couldn’t find the information needed from the requested tasks. Many used searches on the Saint Paul Public Works site or Google instead of going through the flow of the task. 

The map in the “Find my Hauler” section of the site was not user-friendly

Typically, maps that need to locate me should have an autofill to reflect specific consistency and standards of auto-locate features on other platforms. This map does not. 

Learning and Next Steps

I recommended that the Saint Paul Public Works make an FAQ and assess what is the most asked information and prioritize this information to make their site clearer. This could also include a dropdown menu with recommendations (see below) and a simple search function. 

Ramsey County site as an example of a clear flow: https://www.ramseycounty.us