September 2021
City of Seattle
Project Overview:
I was recruited by the City of Seattle to conduct a market analysis of city service. My team specifically focused on creating a usability assessment for affordableseattle.org, a department within the City of Seattle.
We began with indexing every service offered on seattle.gov, including complementary sites like affordableseattle.com. This services map was helpful later on in our project as well, as we identified 105 services available on seattle.gov as 'affordability services' that were missing from affordableseattle.org
Using our excel sheet, we converted it to a csv to create data visualizations in tableau. Here is an example of such a visualization, illustrating the number of services available for each impact group.
We then created a usability assessment with a 5 point scale to distinguish discrete levels. We gave affordableseattle.org a score 1-5 on each topic. We then began testing with users to complete the user testing category of the assessment. We struggled with finding members of our target audience due to COVID-19 restrictions, so our first round of testing was done with peers. Their responses are listed below:
After testing affordableseattle.org with our peers, we compiled their feedback in Miro. This gave us a starting point to begin testing with our target audience.
From our testing, we gained some valuable insights to the usability of the platform, but we still needed to test with members of the target demographic. After consulting the UX team at the city, we transitioned our user testing protocol to a Userlytics survey. This survey included a screener to filter out users who were not part of the target audience. Our team had one member ask the user informational questions (written below on white sticky notes), while the other team members recorded their responses and number of clicks.
From the responses from our peers and the Userlytics data, we created an affinity diagram with actionable recommendations for the city.
A summary of our redesign recommendations can be seen below:
Our recommendations include replacing thumbnail images on affordableseattle.org, anchoring the page higher so users can see a breadcrumb navigation, and redesigning the eligibility calculator and results page. The eligibility calculator is a main feature of affordableseattle.org as it allows Seattle residents to discover money-saving programs and benefits they qualify for.
Redesign: Before and After
In this section, I will illustrate our design recommendations
Here is the current (as of 08/24/2021) homepage of affordableseattle.org
This is a high fidelity wireframe of the homescreen, including a new navigation bar at the top, two home buttons (home icon and the 'AS' logo in the top left), and a redesigned eligibility calculator.
We also redesigned the page users see the programs they are eligible for. I included hyperlinks so users can apply directly from this page, as well as a description of the total cost of the program (instead of just the savings).
Updated Service Thumbnails
When I added all the missing services to affordableseattle.org, there was a new section that emerged: Parks and Recreation.
Pitch to the City
After pitching these design ideas to the City of Seattle UX team, IT department, and Affordable Seattle managers, I am happy to say that our wireframes are being consulted as Affordable Seattle engineers the new and improved site! In addition, my team's usability assessment and user testing protocol have been submitted as whitepapers for future City use.