2. Backgrou
nd
Public Health Seattle King County’s
(PHSKC) website update!
Provide recommendations for
communications team and web
team for content organization and
layout of new site.
Use user-centered design to inform
recommendations and influence
changes
Online user
survey
Website user data:
Google website analytics
Search logs
Help emails
UCD Activities
Focus groups
(UCD) activities
Card sort
March
2016
January
2016
April
2016
February
2016
May 2016 June
2016
July 2016 August
2016
My Timeline
6. Method
s
Google analytics
Help emails & search history
User survey
UCD activities – card sort
GoogleAnalytics is used to track and report website traffic
• Number of unique views
• Average time spend on page
Top Pages
• 87,959
• 3:45 mins
Bed Bugs
• 45, 163
• 1:15 mins
Homepage
• 45,060
• 3:30 mins
Food worker card
• 35,516
• 3:55 mins
Vital statistics (birth)
• 20,117
<1 minFLASH lesson plans
7. Method
s
Google analytics
Help emails & search history
User survey
UCD activities – card sort
Search history
septic
jobs
plumbing permit
parcel viewer
DDES
food handlers card
mold
food handlers permit
food worker card
bed bugs
as built
rabies
measles
8. Metho
ds
Google analytics
Help emails & search history
User survey
UCD activities – card sort
Gathered specific qualitative and
quantitative user feedback regarding:
User tasks & goals
Satisfaction
with the
website
Demographic
information
Behaviors
& attitudes
Contact
information
(optional)
10. Method
s
Google analytics
Help emails & search history
User survey
UCD activities – card sort
A card sort is a specificUCD activity to understand how users
categorize, understand and group information.
11. Method
s
Google analytics
Help emails & search history
User survey
UCD activities – card sort
A card sort is a specificUCD activity to understand how users
categorize, understand and group information.
12. WEBSITE USER
PERSONAS
A technique to visualize audience groups and give them distinct identities.
1. Business Owner
2. Member of the Public
3. Academic
4. Partner in Mission – government/private employers who work with PHSKC
5. PHSKC employee
13. The Academic
student – educator – professor - researcher
“I eventually find the
information that I need,
however the amount of text on
the website is overwhelming!”
Not
satisfied
How users feel about their experience on the website:
Neutral Very
satisfied
Access information
in at least 2
languages
26%
Visit the website
more than 1x
per month
74%
How Do I…?
• Research curriculum
• Find data
• Look up employees
• Learn about programs at
PHSKC
• Find teen health
information
My experience…
• There is too much text
• There is a lot of great
information
• I access the site on my phone
• A improved search engine
would help me find specifics
• Historical programs and data
are not where I expect
USER
14. Results/Recommen
dations
Too much time spent on some pages, not enough on others
Reducing time spent on the homepage1
2
3
5
4
Speaking in acronyms, using PHSKC speak and unclear titles
Environmental Health Services
WIC, MSS, ICM etc..
Create an archive or library for data and program and grant
information that is no longer current
Put actions and services such as “How do I…?” and “Apply for…”
front and center on the homepage
Each program at PHSKC should undergo a “card sort” activity and
a “tree jack” activity
My task was to provide recommendations for the communications and web team to inform content organization and layout of Public Health Seattle and King County's website.
UCD as a concept has many of the same principles as public health and many of the theories we use where center the user’s needs, strengths and ideas in order to create a product. I used UCD as a framework for making my recommendations to PHSKC .
The process for UCD is cyclical and its necessary to move forward and backwards through the process, especially when testing and evaluating how designs work for users. The goal of this process is to put more work in on the front end, with higher return in your final design or product.
too much text
overly populated side menu bar
lacking organization
This is the homepage for the county website and is the same template that we will be using and are currently transitioning to. My main goal of my research is to inform how this template will look for the public health website.
specific user task goals
organized structure
appealing colors with less text and more images
I utilized 4 main methods in order to better provide these recommendations
I analyzed google analytics data from July 2015 to January 2016 and looked at amount of unique views, redundant pages, time spent on pages as well as page navigation to understand the big picture of how our website was being used.
These are the top 5 most viewed pages in that sixth month period with our top page with some concern...being bed bugs.
I reviews help emails and search history from the 2015 calendar year in order to better understand what users were struggling with.
I created a survey and it was featured on the PHSKC homepage and has over 100 respondents, which was truthfully much better than I anticipated!
Gathered specific qualitative and quantitative data regarding:
User tasks and goals
User behaviors and attitudes
Satisfaction with the website
User demographics
Used zip code data that participants provided to create a heat map and was pretty pleased with a wide range of respondents from around the county.
A card sort is a specific UCD activity to understand how users categorize, understand and group information.
I took information from the maternity and infant and WIC services websites to create this card sort and spent the day at Renton clinic with staff and clients doing the activity.
Folks were able to click and drag content into categories they felt were appropriate and also were asked to name the categories.
From these methods, I created user personas and provided recommendations for the website.
These personas are important in informing how the website content will get organized in the second half of this project.
I created 5 distinct user personas, which is a user centered design technique of visualizing specific audiences that use the website and giving them distinct group identities.
Business
Member of the Public
Academic
Partner in Mission
PHSKC employee
This is an example of one of the personas that I created.
Users primary tasks
Users experience needs
Satisfaction level
Qualitative data on their experience
Information about how they use the site including languages and frequency
from my research, these are a few of the recommendations that I made.
First, there is too much time being spent on some pages and not enough on some other pages.
Second, I recommend that each program at Public Health should undergo a card sort activity study with their piece of the website.
Third, I made suggestions about what the most used services and tasks users are looking for and that those would be front and center on the homepage.
Fourth, I recommend that an archive or library is created for data and past program information.
Lastly, it is imperative that all programs at PHSKC move away from acronyms and organizing information based on internal department names and titles instead of how the public views services and tasks.
Tree jack activity also known as a reverse card sort which aims to look at how people move through a website and is based on giving users a task such as “apply to the COPHP program” and then follows the paths and clocks a user takes to get their in order to tell if the layout of your website levels make sense to users.
Environmental Health Services is one of the more popular hubs of the website, but this program title is confusing to many non public health workers. This is where information about food safety lives, but also where information about getting rid of rats in your house as well as getting permit for farmers market or a food truck. One of the things I learned from my research on this area, is that it is impetrative not to label our website based on department and program names that do not mean anything to our clients and users.
This process really translates beyond the website into learning how the public interacts with public health and with government and how they get their information and data.
