Redesign solution for civicinfo bc web site

According to the mission statement on the home page, CivicInfo BC is 'a web-based resource the main goal of which is to facilitate information sharing and collaboration among people who work, or have an interest in the British Columbia local government sector. Rob MacDonald, Marcia Peterson, and Alan Rosenthal conducted a Contextual Inquiry of the CivicInfo BC Web site at the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver municipal government offices. At the conclusion of the interview, we created an Affinity Diagram to analyze the issues that we observed.

After performing an analysis of the tasks conducted by the users that we observed during the contextual inquiry, in addition to the context in which they are performed, we conducted a scenario-based usability study in which participants were given a set of tasks to complete for each of our proposed redesigns of the CivicInfo BC Web site. Users were asked to "think aloud" while working through each task. The purpose of the think aloud method is to gain an understanding of the participants thought processes, expectations, and how they came to make their decisions.

The study was conducted by Alan Rosenthal using Microsoft Live Meeting. The use of Live Meeting enabled Marcia Peterson and Rob MacDonald to participate remotely in the usability study via conference call. Screen activity was also recorded using Camtasia Recorder.