I worked on this project as UX Lead and Information Architect building sitemap, user flows and content strategy. I also was the UX Lead in which I created and supervised wireframes, annotations and product deliveries to the final client.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
After a series of interviews with internal users of the city hall who would be pushing content to the CMS system, I designed the basic structure and hierarchy of the information in order to create a UX strategy that would support both, the city’s employees and citizens requests for quick accessibility of the information.
Started with the levels of navigation that a user had to navigate and come up with a 3 tier level menu. Even though the 3rd level of navigation was a bit disconnected from the upper levels, it did stand on its own and users were finding the relationship to the content very easily.
DESIGN
I went to the heart of Downtown Culver City to find out what the screenland was all about, specially since they went through a city rebranding just before I was brought into the site redesign project. I found that their rebranding was all about bringing back the art deco elements from the era when Culver City was the place where the studios used to have their stages and silent films were made, so I decided to bring some if this details into the design.
USER TESTING
We found that the overall experience and task completion of citizens was successful. Some users even realized that the city’s portal hosted some important features they never though to look for on this site. I heard from City officials that the presentation of the site at the town hall meeting was a success and they have seen an increase of traffic and transactions.
