City of Rockville Website Refresh
The City of Rockville prides itself in quality customer service and the residents have recognized that effort. While the in-person customer service has been exceptional, it was not carefully carried out in our website, resulting in user frustration and confusing.
In recent community surveys, residents have identified the website as the primary place where they get information about the city and services, creating an urgency to improve the website in advance of receiving funding for a full redesign.
Goal.
Working within the constraints of the current content management system, create a service-focused architecture and improve the content quality for residents and Rockville visitors.
Secondly, improve the overall accessibility, meeting 508 compliance, and increase search engine optimization.
My Role.
As product manager, I organized and led a cross-departmental committee, involving staff from varying levels including frontline staff and deputy directors.
Based on user feedback, the main area of attention was improving the information architecture. I was responsible for initial user research, leading card sorting exercises and recruiting users and tree testing. Moving from an organizationally-based architecture to a service-based architecture, I cataloged, audited and analyzed every page and prioritized using the Kano method.
Using a scrum style workflow, I managed and coordinated content production between 50 subject-matter experts. Working with the SME, I edited and co-wrote priority pages using plain language standards.
Throughout the project lifecycle, I acted as a liaison between key stakeholders and residents, constantly communicating the resident’s needs to create new website features and inform new content.
Working with our technology partners, I created a custom component library and widgets to create visual uniformity and consistency, which was lacking on our previous iteration.
Example: Permit Process Section
Before: Business process map
After: Business process map
Journey Maps were created for each priority user task. Example: Residential Construction Permit
Prioritization Matrix
Before: Landing Page
After: Landing Page
Success Measures
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Decrease in time spent completing tasks
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Decrease in website-related phone calls
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Increase in repeat visitation (contractors)
Key Takeaways.
Most website contributors were unfamiliar with general website design understanding. Significant time spent upfront training and educating staff would have better equipped them for discussions.
Due to the scope of the website and the differences in user tasks and audience types, a single committee struggled to create overall goals. For the full-scale redesign, smaller committees dedicated to user groups would create more productive project teams.