MI.GOV Site Design Evaluation October 2008

MI.GOV Usability Review  MSU Usability and Accessibility Center (UAC)  Reviewed rankings by studies like Brookings, Center for Digital Government  Prepared Analysis of Customer Satisfaction Survey  Led 2 Focus Groups  Prepared Heuristic Review

Diagnosis  Results of the study indicate that a redesign of the Michigan.gov site is necessary.

Strengths  Quantity of Information  Some users are highly satisfied with the site  Drop down lists for easy access to some online services  Location of Search Box

Weaknesses  Site is difficult for infrequent users  Overlapping content areas: Spotlight, What’s New, News…  Left and right image links look too much like advertising  Multiple navigation methods  Top most is overlooked due to dull coloration  Change of order in left navigation for selected item  Left nav items are arranged randomly resulting in difficulty scanning  Search: 33% report unsuccessful searches

Opportunities  Abbreviate, group and eliminate content on the home page  Eliminate and control clutter  Rename sections for better description of content  Remove duplicate links on pages  Eliminate animation  Use tabs for navigation  Order left nav alphabetically

Abbreviate, group and eliminate content on the home page  Too many sections contain similar type content  Quick Links and Featured Links are a mish mash of links  Too many text links in those 2 groups

 The SoM Home page has 4 references to News or Newswire Remove redundant content links

 The SoM Home page has 3 references for Jobs and 2 references for Lottery  2 references to the Governor Remove redundant content links

 Services should be renamed to Online services or eServices  Departments and Directories should be clustered together  Directories should be renamed to Contacts  Quick Links is a collection of unrelated items  Same for Featured Links Rename Sections

 Animation is distracting to the user  Image banners may be animated but should only run for a certain time span then quit animating Eliminate animation

 Users liked the tabs on other sites  Make tabbed navigation more noticable using color  Make use of drop down menus to improve use of space Use tabs for navigation

 Improved scanning  Is a best practice  Eliminate active item moving to the top Order Left Navigation Alphabetically

 Create tabbed content targeted to various audiences  Less clutter/more whitespace  Use descriptive Page Titles  Improved metadata= improved search results  Use widgets to display multiple content items in less space More Recommendations

Next Steps  Create wire frame layouts devoid of detailed graphics  Wire frame should indicate groups, navigation, content  Examine “widgets” as content holders  Review taxonomy and look for economy in categories and navigation groups

What is Heuristic?  Heuristic evaluation is a usability engineering method for finding the usability problems in a user interface design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process.  Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles.

Two Focus Groups  Viewed and discussed other State home pages  Viewed Michigan.gov

Michigan.gov - What They Liked  Liked the pull down lists in the middle of the page  Lots of great information  Link to the Lottery site  Different colors of text to help separate content  News articles  Lottery news and link on home page

Michigan.gov - What They Disliked  Site is too text heavy  Unbalanced (“compressed to the left”)  Name: Official State of Michigan Portal seemed too tech-y  Unutilized space to the right  Insufficient space for the pull down lists  Hard to find things  Search problems  No picture in banner

Goals for MI.GOV 2009  Consistent layout and design  Adequate and appropriate white space  Clean layout  Color-coded design  Content separated in visible containers  Impactful, professional quality images  Clearly identified banner images  Clear and consistent navigational hierarchy

Goals for MI.GOV 2009  User group segmentation of navigation  Uses tabs for main or secondary navigation (where appropriate)  Breadcrumbs  Pages to inform users of redirects outside of the government site  Clear page identifiers  Clearer access to the Online Services section  Accessibility compliance with the Priority Level One standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)  Web 2.0 Social networking implementation

Goals for MI.GOV Agencies 2009  Strongly consider using an evaluation like this if you plan to redesign your site  MSU Usability and Accessibility Center is available to conduct unbiased site evaluations for you on contract  Make your site customer-centric  Heed the rules and laws of good Web design  Use sorting and grouping techniques to set up information  Accessibility compliance is still important  Request assistance from eMichigan  eMichigan keeps up on all of the latest usability and accessibility standards

MI.GOV Site Design Evaluation Questions?