Best Practices in Site Usability Through CMS

1
Gilbane San Francisco

• Best Practices in Site Usability Through CMS
• Case Study City of Las Vegas, NV
• Greg Duncan
• eGovernment Manager

2
Agenda

• Background
• Challenges
• Goals
• Approach
• Results
• Lessons Learned

Our Story
New CLV Web Site
New CMS Interface
3
Background

• LV Fastest growing city in U.S.
• 518K residents (in 2003)
• Net 5 to 8K new residents per month
• Must deliver services through smart use of
  technology
• Cant add staff proportionately to match resident
  growth
• 24 x 7 town

4
Background

• Old web site offered extensive online services
• Parking ticket payments (9.5K transactions per
  year)
• Sewer bill payments (9K)
• Traffic school (7.5K)
• Class registration (6.8K)
• Service requests potholes, graffiti, traffic
  light problems, etc. (3.9K)

5
Background

• Web site owned by I.T. and Communications
• Communications approves content
• I.T. responsible for everything else
• Navigation
• Look-and-feel
• Infrastructure
• Departments responsible for updating content
  (RedDot CMS)

6
Challenges

• City thinks in terms of departments
• Departments want to distinguish themselves from
  others
• Use acronyms and internal jargon
• Citizens think in terms of functions
• Dont know or care about departments
• See us as one city, not a collection of
  individual departments

7
Challenges

• Government web sites often organized like the
  departments they represent
• Departments are like silos
• Must know department to find the service
• Functionally related information owned by
  another entity is rarely presented
• Look-and-feel/navigation/tone changes
• Need to drill down and back up again
• Separate menu for each chef mentality

8
Old CLV Web Site Navigation Structure
Home Page

• Dept A web page
• Our structure
• What we do

• Dept B web page
• Our structure
• What we do

• Dept C web page
• Our structure
• What we do

ABC Division
XYZ Division
DEF Division
UVW Division
GHI Division
RST Division
Map A1
License A2
Brochure A3
Map B1
License B2
Brochure B3
Map C1
License C2
Brochure C3
9
Old CLV Web Site Navigation Structure

• Characteristics
• Services reside in department pages
• No cross-departmental presentation of related
  services
• Department/division sites are visually
  inconsistent with each other
• Requires several clicks to move from one function
  to another
• One way to navigate go to the department to
  find the service

• Results for citizens
• Generally dont know our departments therefore,
  finding services is difficult
• Need to drill down and back up again to find
  things
• Difficult to move between functions
• May not trust they are on the CLV site due to
  look-and-feel changes from page to page
• Rarely presented with information that is
  functionally-related but owned by another
  department or agency

10
Challenges

• Is it in the City or the County?
• Content needed improvement
• Photos added little value
• Text was too wordy not written for citizens

11
Challenges

• ????

12
Challenges

• Site had become a repository
• Post it and they will come (and hopefully find
  it)
• Staff often talked citizens through the steps
  over the phone
• Everybody thinks theyre a web designer
• Government culture is not particularly receptive
  to change

13
Challenges

• Content contributors were not comfortable with
  CMS
• Generally had little web knowledge
• Designated person often changed
• Often forgot the steps
• Felt restricted
• I.T. had imposed restrictions based on I.T.s
  needs, not department needs

14
Goals

• Make it easy for citizens to find information and
  services
• Make it easy for content contributors to maintain
  the site
• Dont limit our thinking by any unnecessary
  constraints!

15
Goals

• Make it easy for citizens to find information and
  services
• One city offering city services
• Easy to move between functions
• Present related information regardless of who
  owns it
• Keep the audience perspective
• Focus on functions
• De-emphasize departments
• Dont lose sight of the white arrow!

16
Goals

• Make it easy for content contributors to maintain
  the site
• Shouldnt need to know the web site structure to
  make updates
• Help them develop effective content
• Avoid painting the walls black

17
Goals

• Dont limit our thinking by any unnecessary
  constraints!
• Werent required to use any existing product,
  process, etc.
• Not really a redesign, but rather a new site

18
Approach

• Management philosophy
• Establish broad boundaries/direction and get out
  of the way
• Encourage well-intentioned failure
• ReadyFireAim
• Project management philosophy
• Conceive how it should be first then try to
  overcome obstacles
• Question EVERYTHING
• 50/50 partnership with Communications

19
Approach

• Build the site by following usability best
  practices
• What is usability?
• Easy to learn
• Efficient to use
• Easy to remember
• Few errors
• Subjectively pleasing
• Looked for a usability class

20
Approach

• Hired user experience experts
• Delphia Consulting Columbus, OH
• Delivered customized usability training
• Developed initial design concepts
• Performed usability testing
• Wrote usable CMS requirements
• Provided development work and consulting
  expertise

21
Approach

• Usability training
• Customized for CLV
• Addressed basic usability concepts
• Relative importance ? and ?
• Inverted pyramid style of writing
• Make text easy to scan Less is more
• Use visual design to enhance, not define,
  interaction design
• Designed to increase awareness
• Navigation evolved from class discussion

22
Approach

• Usability testing (discount approach)
• Heuristic reviews
• Big bang for the buck
• Structured walkthrough testing
• Quickly gets low hanging fruit
• Its not just about the web site
• Apply principles to processes, documents, etc.

23
Approach

• Attributes of system acceptability (Usability
  Engineering)

24
Approach

• Followed user-centered design principles
• Whats most important for the user?
• Focus on scenarios, not features
• Develop high quality content
• If it doesnt deliver value, dont post it!
• Moving to a true self-service model

25
The Cost of Service
Incident Cost
Pitfalls

• Long wait time
• Difficult to find the right person

33.00

• Takes days to get an answer
• Multiple responses before issue is resolved

8.00

• Too much information
• Not sure where to start
• Poor results, leads to phone call or e-mail

0.25
If users cannot locate the service and support
information they require on your web site, they
will resort to higher cost channels
Sources Frost Sullivan - 2001
26
Approach

• Hired RedDot to implement CMS based on their best
  practices
• Redesigning CMS to make it easier
• Designing for infrequent users
• Building usability best practices into content
  entry/placement
• Page edit ? content edit
• I.T. is handling content updates until rebuild is
  complete

27
Approach

• Sold our approach to CLV
• Sponsoring directors
• Got city managers support
• Promoted concept at Team LV meetings
• Project managers
• Built strong relationships and established
  credibility with stakeholders
• Gathered requirements
• Listened to their concerns
• Acknowledged past mistakes

28
Approach

• Sold our approach to CLV, continued
• Told our story at every opportunity
• Department team meetings, citywide meetings,
  Council town halls, etc.
• Gilbane conference
• Radio/CLV television appearances, Statetech
  magazine article (Apr/May 06)
• Web awards (PRSA)
• Benchmarking (ICMA, MIX, counterparts at other
  cities)

29
Results
30
Results
31
New CLV Web Site Navigation Structure
Visitor portal page Category 1 Category 2 Map
A1 License B2 Map C3 Brochure A1
Resident portal page Category 1 Category
2 License B2 Map A1 License A3 Brochure C3
Business portal page Category 1 Category
2 Brochure C2 License A1 Brochure A2 Map C2
Who you are

• Maps page
• Category 1
• Map A1
• Map B2
• Map C3
• etc.

• Licenses page
• Category 1
• License A1
• License B2
• License C3
• etc.

• Brochures page
• Category 1
• Brochure A1
• Brochure B2
• Brochure C3
• etc.

• Dept A home page
• What we do
• Map A1
• License A1
• Brochure A1

• Dept B home page
• What we do
• Map B1
• License B1
• Brochure B1

• Dept C home page
• What we do
• Map C1
• License C1
• Brochure C1

The old way
32
New CLV Web Site Navigation Structure

• Characteristics
• Services reside in central menu pages
• Services are emphasized departments are
  de-emphasized
• Related information is presented regardless of
  who owns it
• Consistent navigation and look-and-feel
  throughout the site
• Can move between functions in 1-2 clicks
• Three ways to navigate

• Results for citizens
• Multiple ways to get to services
• Dont need to know our departments to find
  services (but can still find things that way)
• Easy to move between functions
• Easy to trust you are on the CLV site
• Related information owned by other departments
  or agencies is presented

33
Results

• Got unanimous agreement from 25 departments
• Leisure Services 180º turnaround

34
Results

• New web site is much easier to use
• Positive feedback (?)
• Complaints (?)
• More targeted hits
• Improved our scenarios
• Interactive Map ? Find My Councilperson or Ward
• Address lookup for Request Help pages

35
Background

• Usage and awareness of online services (?)
• Sewer bill payments (65)
• Parking ticket payments (32)
• Traffic school (8)
• Service requests (289)
• Animal control
• Potholes
• Graffiti
• Etc.

36
Results

• Web site cost 143K (vs. over 1 million for
  similar sites)
• Imitation the sincerest form of flattery

37
Lessons Learned

• Establish an empowered team
• Provide project vision and broad boundaries
• Encourage well-intentioned failure
• Tell them what to do, not how to do it
• Its not about the technology its about the
  people
• Conceive how it should be first then try to
  overcome the obstacles

38
Lessons Learned

• Citizens see us as one city offering city
  services, not individual departments
• Customized usability best practices training was
  the key to gaining unanimous department support
• Get feedback from real users early and often

39
Gilbane San Francisco

• Questions?
• Greg Duncan
• eGovernment Manager
• gduncan_at_lasvegasnevada.gov
• http//www.lasvegasnevada.gov
• 702-229-5268

40
Usability Resources

• www.useit.com
• www.ibm.com/easy
• msdn.microsoft.com/ui
• www.asktog.com
• www.webpagesthatsuck.com
• www.gerrymcgovern.com/new_thinking.htm
• www.uie.com/
• www.delphiaconsulting.com/usability