On this page you can find more information about the user research that is influencing the design of the new Haringey Council website.
It’s important to note that residents had provided us with lots of useful feedback on what they liked and disliked about the site before the formal research started, so the team were building on a foundation of knowledge about what needed to be improved.
Timeline
A list of the most significant user research activities that we've carried out.
August 2022: initial user research
Research into what our residents’ feelings towards our current website started in August 2022 when we commissioned TellTale research.
The results provide valuable information on improvements to design, organisation and the way content is written.
December 2022: homepage analytics
We commissioned usability specialists Invuse to look at the ways that mobile and desktop users interacted with our homepage, to identify differences in behaviour.
January 2023: more detailed stakeholder and residents research
Invuse carried out more detailed interviews and research with both residents and council staff and gathered some fascinating views on what our priorities should be in the new site.
February 2023: in-person user research at Wood Green Library
We wanted to ensure we did not just listen to the (already digitally engaged) people who visited our existing website, so Invuse did some ‘guerrilla research’. They spent a few hours in the Wood Green library customer service centre to talk to visitors about why they had come in, but also to ask how they would like information arranged on a website to make navigation easy.
March 2023
User scenario testing
We wanted to ‘benchmark’ the existing site in terms of usability. This would let us measure any improvements that our new designs brought.
So, we invited residents and asked them to complete some common tasks, such as finding the price of a visitor parking permit and recorded how long it took to complete each task and any problems they had completing it.
Digital card sorting
Getting navigation right is a crucial part of making a website usable. There are lots of ways to group things together. ‘Digital card sorting’ lets us see how residents organise website information in their own minds.
Alpha test research
By the end of March, we had created the first draft of our new site design, based on our previous research. This ‘Alpha’ version of the site was subjected to testing to see what worked well, and what needed further improvement. These are the results.
April 2023 – research summary show-and-tell
A summary overview of the previous research and findings as of the beginning of April 2023.
July 2023 - beta functional tests
A summary report from the functional (including mobile responsiveness), accessibility, and content testing carried out by Invuse in June 2023. All issues flagged by this testing has been passed back to the developers and is being actioned.
August 2023 - beta scenario benchmark testing
The purpose of this usability test was to conduct unmoderated scenario testing for the Beta phase of the project. This allows measuring the success of the new website sections using baseline data from the benchmark testing conducted on the current site in the Discovery phase.
April 2024 - launch scenario benchmark testing
Following launch of more content on the new website - and to help wrap up the project - we carried out one final round of scenario tests. This checks to see if improvements seen in the Beta phase have been sustained as we bring more content across.
Future research activities
Research continues on improving the site designs. If you use one of the newly designed pages, you will see a form at the top of the page to give feedback and sign up to help us with more user research if you wish.
We will also be reaching out to many community groups in the coming weeks and months to make sure everyone's voice is heard and various needs satisfied.
PDF files
One of our aims is to phase out PDF files wherever possible, as they are difficult to read on mobile phones and not always accessible for people using assistive technology.
We’ve made the PDFs on this page as accessible as possible, but if you are having problems with these reports please let us know by emailing content@haringey.gov.uk