Rogaland County Council

Detailed project description

Phase 1: Web strategy

We carried out an initial workshop to identify Rogaland County Council’s objectives and challenges and to document which methods and resources were needed to reach their goals. Higher quality and simplification of the user interface in the new system were established as important goals. A project group of 8-10 people was set up with a well understood mandate.

Phase 2: Users and user needs

The hardest part! The next step was to identify the different user groups and attempt to prioritise them. To strengthen the focus on the end user in the project, a series of personas were developed. These were used throughout the entire development. This created a good basis for the further work. Following this was a longer phase to identify the intentions and needs of the different target groups. This created the basis for mapping the contents of the final solution.

Phase 3: Information architecture

After a thorough analysis of what content needed to be included to satisfy the priority users’ needs and the Council’s goals and preferences, the organisation of the actual page content was determined.

Phase 4: Interaction design and prototyping

Based on the previous phases, we had sufficient knowledge to start developing the prototype itself. We chose the concept, navigation principles and saw how the different pages should fit together. It was also important to keep the accessibility of the system in mind throughout this process.

Phase 5: Usability testing the concept

We brought in realistic users to test the system in our usability lab. We also carried out Norway’s first remote usability test from our Oslo testing lab on users in Stavanger.

Phase 6: Quality assurance of the graphic design and technical development

We were extremely strict with both the graphic designers and in evaluating the accessibility aspects in the new technical system. This was to ensure that the concept, which after all, had been usability tested with the target user groups, should not lose either its user-friendliness or the user experience.