Are we building this thing right?

Client: Ministry of Public Administration

Duration of the project: 2 months

Striving for better user experience, the Ministry of Public Administration set out to optimize and unify the digital communication of the Slovenian government by developing a single entry point for its citizens. A prototype of the new web portal gov.si was developed (by Innovatif) based on identified needs of different user groups and the government’s communication strategy. In order to evaluate if the proposed solution adequately supported different ways of how users look for governmental information online and identify content most relevant to them, we conducted usability testing of the gov.si portal prototype. The goals of the testing were: test 10 user scenarios, check acceptance criteria for functionalities and provide guidelines for further development of the prototype.

Our project was designed in four stages: planning, testing, research and reporting. In the planning stage we focused on aligning the proposed methodology and process with the client, focusing on who the users are and what research questions we wanted answered. To find out whether we’re getting the needed information and  if the selected methods are indeed appropriate, we tested the research design. With the upgraded interview and observation guidelines we were ready to recruit representatives of identified user groups. During our research we ran 3 research cohorts of 5 users over 3 weeks. After the first week of research we realized we needed to expand on our user groups and included 2 more in the following weeks.

Just under 20h of voice recordings, 15 interview records and user surveys were analyzed and synthesized in the usability testing report and design guidelines. These were presented to the client and the agency developing the portal. 

The research project showed both the client and the agency that additional attention was required on two user groups previously not accounted for and their online behavior. The provided design guidelines also led the portal editors to focus more on the content relevant to the users rather than the government. Gov.si was launched in June 2019.