You're probably aware that we've been busy working away on new.shropshire.gov.uk - to be honest it's all we've been harping on about, how could you not know?
As part of the new.shropshire.gov.uk project we've been re-engineering the whole look, feel and experience. Now, we think we've done a fairly good job, but, as the saying goes, "the proof is in the pudding".
So, armed with an iPad we visited The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse and sat with some friendly local residents who were kind enough - in between eating their cake and drinking their coffee - to carry out some testing on new.shropshire.gov.uk.
First we asked our testers to use the site freely and to give general feedback. We then asked them to carry out some of the top tasks we had found in our statistics to ensure that they could:
- Still find the information
- Find it easier
- Maybe learn something new along the way.
The information we got out of this session was priceless, it proved that we had made things better, but there was still room for improvement. For example, with something as simple as the menu button, we noticed that most of our testers scrolled past it, so we've now made it purple in the hope that other visitors to the site will spot it with ease.
We'd like to thank The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse for allowing us to come along during their busy lunch hour to speak with their customers.
If you're interested in paying The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse a visit they are located on Castle Gates, Shrewsbury. You can also follow them on twitter @CoffeehouseLtd.
Rich, who works there, looks forward to meeting you and says:
"There's so much Christmas spirit there's not enough room to swing a cat."
We're hoping to visit The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse again before Christmas so keep an eye on our Twitter account (@projectwip) for details. However, we've been told that to gain entry we must wear reindeer antlers or Santa hats...
We're always on the look out for other suitable venues for conducting our usability tests. If any businesses think they could offer us a venue, access to customers and some free wifi then please get in touch.