Testing of the Portal for Provision of National E-services

Overview

In 2017, the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA) set out to modernise the national e-services portal, the single contact point for state services, so that it would meet citizens' needs and be easy and efficient to use. With support from UNDP North Macedonia, SmartUp worked with MISA to find out how people actually experience the portal.

Our role was to design and run the user research and testing, from recruiting a diverse group of users to turning what we observed into practical recommendations for the portal.

The challenge

Designing around real users

The Ministry needed to understand how people perceive the portal, how easy it is to use and whether they find it useful, because those factors decide whether people come back.

Hearing from a diverse group

Feedback had to come from people of different ages, genders, abilities and digital skills, not only from those most at ease online.

From observations to action

Notes, recordings and comments from many sessions had to be turned into clear recommendations that the Ministry and the service provider could act on.

Activities and methods

We built the testing around realistic tasks and the six usability factors the Ministry needed to understand.

Portal testing. Over two days at the Social Innovation Hub at FINKI, individual sessions of 40 to 50 minutes paired one test leader with one user, run by three test leaders. 31 people took part, in four age groups from 16–18 to over 50, with attention to equal representation across gender, age, disability and digital literacy.
Realistic scenarios. Users carried out tasks a first-time visitor is likely to try, such as finding information on starting a business, applying for a student home, or what to do after a flood.
Six usability factors. We assessed user task analysis, readability, site navigation, accessibility, website speed and overall user experience.
Early-stage and well documented. The portal was tested while still in early development, across a variety of operating systems, devices, browsers and screen resolutions. Sessions were captured with screen recording, audio and photos, and monitoring software mapped how users moved through the platform.
Analysis and recommendations. We analysed and synthesised the findings into a report with recommendations across 15 categories, including a proposed homepage layout and a standard structure for presenting each service.

Impact and learning

The testing produced a report in which the large volume of insights was analysed, synthesised and translated into actionable recommendations, with a full UX design for improving the platform. The report included recommendations across 15 categories.

We also proposed a homepage layout and a standard structure for presenting every public service: an overview, who can apply, the documents needed, ways to apply, how long it takes, fees, what happens after applying, and how to appeal.

For the portal, the key recommendations included:

Restructure the homepage, moving the search function up and centring the information on the services provided.
Improve navigation: reduce scrolling as far as possible and make sure tags are relevant and understandable, especially for older users.
Improve the menu: service categorisation needs work, because current names describe results rather than services.

The findings informed the design of the modernised national e-services portal, uslugi.gov.mk.

A key lesson from the work: test with a diverse group of users before technical development begins, and keep collecting feedback after launch, so the portal keeps improving.