The final piece of UX work our vendor completed on their assessment of Yukon.ca was a series of usability test/user interviews. In our initial plan we were going to conduct tree tests to learn more about how people navigate the website. As we learned more about how people used the website, the vendor recommended we observe people using the website and follow up by asking them questions to better understand the "why" reasoning behind certain decisions they made. 

About the participants

There were 11 participants in part of this research project. All were Yukoners and they represented a variety of ages, genders, communities and cultures. 

Task completion

Overall we learned a few valuable lessons about how people complete tasks on this website and what they want to do if they can't complete a task.

Particpants tended to search for specific information before going to the menu.

When navigating category and sub-category pages the top task buttons made a big difference to participants in the ease of completing the task. 

Participants had little or no issues completing tasks related to finding common information that was clearly on the correct page or fell under a distinct category on the website. They did run into varying degrees of challenges in completing tasks that fell under categories that were less distict - for example, Your government. 

If participants could not find what they were looking for, they wanted to:

• phone or email the contact number of the page they were on, regardless of if it was the correct page or contact information, or
• go to a government office to complete the task in person.

Quality of information on Yukon.ca

What we learned

• Some participants noted the lack of date stamps on the pages, and how that made them question if the information was the most up to date.
• In one case, during a test related to waste recycling, the participant identified information that was out of date in relation to the location of the recycling facility in Dawson City.

Particpant quote

 “And that's funny… because it shows me Dawson City downtown Recycling Depot… which as a matter of fact I know doesn't exist anymore. Because there is no Recycling Depot in town anymore. That's interesting. That this was a temporary Recycling Depot at the bottom of the Dome Road…” 

Layout

What we learned

Home page

Participants generally liked the home page and found the labeling of categories logical and thorough.

Any particpant given a task related to the Health and wellness category hesitated or got tripped up on the hover tile block on the home page. 

1. When they hovered over the block, even to click on a link, the block slides and they clicked on the wrong item.
2. They could not access the category page to see more content because the category link was not underlined or styled to look like a link. 

Category and sub-category pages

Participants did experience some issues on the category and subcategory pages. 

• Content appeared as a wall of text.
• It was challenging to see how one list differed from another.
• Inconsistent headings where some were linked and others were not.
• Repetitive words like "apply" and "find out" made it hard for participants to scan lists for keywords.
• They were unclear how the page content was organized and did not always understand the logic of how the sub-categories were ordered. 

Information pages

Particpants liked the layout of the information and found it to be easily scannable and digestible. 

In some sections of the site where the sidebar was longer, some particpants had difficulty navigating between pages, but others leveraged it to improve the efficiency of their navigation. 

Contact information on all pages

Contact information was interesting. One of the goals of Yukon.ca is to allow people to self-service so they can access information about programs and services when it's convenient for them. There are instances where they might want to contact a staff member and in these instances we learned a few things. 

On category and sub-category pages that contain links to content on more than one topic, particpants always assumed the Contact the government link in the top tasks would take them to a specific contact for the information they were looking for. For example, if a participant was on the Health and wellness category page looking for information about the Minister of Health and Social Services and selected Contact the government - they only wanted to see the minister's contact information. 

Most information pages have program contact details at the bottom of the page which did meet the needs of many particpants although a few wanted the information toward the top of the page. 

Participant quote

“I think It's nicely laid out. There's some nice white space in between sections. It's really well organized under headers and subheaders. There's lots of bullet point lists, which is nice not like a page of just massive blocks of text. There's always a contact at the bottom so that if you still have questions or can't find you're looking for you can call.” 

Downloads

When a particpant had to download content as part of the task completion the researchers followed up to learn more about the experience.  

What we learned

Participants did not like having to download files. They especially did not like it:

• when the content was not a form or application or
• there was no other way to access the information.

With regard to forms and applications, participants expected to be able to submit forms and apply for things directly online. They were not thrilled if they had to scan or print it to submit via email or in person. 

One participant mentioned that downloading files would be an issue for people with limited data plans.

Participant quote

 “So now if I go to download the status report to find the most up-to-date information which that's now three or four clicks to find information... then I get here and then all the sudden instead of anything I have to download a document. ... How ludicrous is this that I have to download a document for information?” 

Senior citizens and elders

Because there were a few senior citizens and elders participating in the usability tests, researchers were able to learn more about their experience using Yukon.ca.

What we learned

Older particpants had more difficulty completing the tasks overall. When asked about what they found to be challenging, they cited their comfort and habits about using computers and the internet as the biggest barriers.

Senior particpants liked the idea of having a section with all the links relevant to them in one place.

Participant quote

“I always get a little bit frustrated because things are changing. Everything is online. You don't have a human having a conversation with you anymore. You're being steered towards web pages and different things like that. So sometimes those are little changes and it takes some time to realize you can do everything online.” 

People who are new to the Yukon

Some of the participants work in fields where they interact with people who are new to the Yukon. These people have recently moved to the Yukon and in some cases immigrated to Canada from another country.

What we learned

These participants identified two priorities for these groups.

1. Offer translations in more languages then French and English.
2. Create a section of the website to link new residents to resources.

Participant quote

“We have a lot of newcomers coming to the territory so ...their tasks are very different from ours. ... I didn't check to see if there's a tool... to translate it into their language because we should have one. A week ago I was presenting First Nation history and culture to a classroom of 11 individuals and there were people from nine different countries” 

Summary

The research done before this (analytics, heuristics, comparison with other government websites) helped us identify potential problem areas. The user feedback analysis and this usability testing and user interviews have provided us with more clarity on these issues. They also provided us with ideas real users have to make these interactions work better for others.

The goal of this user research is to strategically continue to improve the overall user experience on Yukon.ca. Based on this part of the research, these are some of the important pieces we look as we plan out the Yukon.ca product roadmap for the next few years. 

• Accessibility. Complete an overall, in-depth scan of Yukon.ca to ensure it meets or exceeds our accessibility standard. Address home page layout issues that make it hard for people to access content. 
• Search experience. At the moment the search results tend to prioritize news releases and documents and this is not the content most people want, or expect to see. So with the Drupal 10 update this coming fall we'll be retesting so we can continue to improve the search results to better link people with the content they need.
• Category and subcategory pages
  • Better align contact information
  • Improve page layout and navigation experience
  • Improve processes and tools to ensure content is up to date so users have confidence they have the most relevant information.
• Downloads. Reduce the number of PDFs on Yukon.ca and make more forms into digital services or online forms that people can complete or submit online. 
• Content for specific user groups like seniors and people who are new to the Yukon. This content exists on the website so we'll look at strategies for improving their visibility to ensure they are accessed and used by the people who need them.

Next steps

This body of research has been shared with the Yukon.ca product owner and the digital communications team at the Executive Council Office. They will be working together to facilitate roadmapping sessions to account for this work. We expect this plan to come together early this winter and we'll publish a post once it's online.

For any questions about this project email eservices@yukon.ca.