Darwin City Council Website - Australia’s Most Usable!

Council websites have become an integral source of information for people living in cities. They provide information on everything from pet registration to garbage collection dates and noise restrictions. Using Loop11, we invited 600 participants to take part in a website usability study of of Australia's six capital city websites: Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Darwin. Participants were asked to try and complete several tasks on each website.

Darwin City Council had the best score with 74% (The only council website to score over 70%). Perth and Adelaide Council had the lowest scores with 54% and 58%, respectively. There was little difference between the remaining three websites with only 7% margin separating them.

Surprisingly, Hobart City Council , the only council website which required participants to download a PDF did not come in last. Despite the lowest task completion rates and longest average time per task Hobart was saved by a good “ease of use rating”. But clearly there’s a lot more work to be done by city cCouncil websites to help people navigate their websiteefficiently and find the appropriate information, especially by the the City of Perth and Adelaide Councils City Council.

This report was generated entirely from results obtained through running a usability study with Loop11, published at www.loop11.com/council-websites/

Associated Link: Remote Website Usability Testing

Three Things Steve Krug Didn’t Tell You About Usability Testing
Source: George Saines, 2 September 2010
 
Don't make me think. Well, ok, maybe a little bit.

Trace exactly what Users are doing
Source: killerstartups, 30 August 2010
 
A new tool lets you watch all of your website activity, in real-time replays.

Google boosts Usability with Gmail revamp
Source: V3.co.uk, 28 August 2010
 
Long overdue improvements to Gmail may increase its appeal to business users.

Tech4Africa conference runs in Johannesburg
Source: bizcommunity, 26 August 2010
 
A new conference in Africa recognises usability as a central concept to IT uptake.

Top 3 Usability Tips for Building Better Blogs
Source: CMS Wire, 24 August 2010
 
If you're compelled to blog, may as well get it right.

Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain
Source: New York Times, 23 August 2010
 
Fascinating account of how heavy use of digital devices changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.

Tips for International In-home User Research
Source: System Concepts Ltd, 20 August 2010
 
In-home user research can provide richer, more illuminating information than lab-based studies. Here are some tips for a successful in-home international research.

New Study- Gender differences in Web Usability
Source: Demystifying Usability blog, 18 August 2010
 
Comscore has released a new study (June 30 2010) entitled Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet.

UX Myths: Usability testing is Expensive
Source: UX Myths, 16 August 2010
 
Many organizations still believe usability testing is a luxury that requires an expensively equipped lab and takes weeks to conduct.

Usability testing may improve hit rate of Mobile Advertising
Source: UN, 14 August 2010
 
A new mobile advertising service is launching in the UK. Will usability testing help it achieve its goals?