The City of Ann Arbor website is the online public square for this vibrant university town. The site serves as a place for visitors, residents, and businesses to get information and access city services. Like many sites that serve distinct departments and constituencies, the site had grown organically over time and needed an update for clarity and simplicity of use. 

The Problem: Help Visitors Help Themselves to Information

The City wanted an update that reflects its reputation as a regional tech hub with a unique character. They also knew from their experience, customer feedback, and web analytics that the site needed a refresh. The team turned to TUG to help them organize their online public square.

The Solution: Organized Content Based on User Needs

The City was on a tight budget, so efforts focused only on the home page and designing a template for department sections using Parks and Recreation as the prototype. 

The primary navigation was distilled into three sections that organized content based on user needs: Enjoy Ann Arbor, Business in Ann Arbor, and Democracy in Ann Arbor.

Additionally, all city services and departments were made available in overlapping comprehensive access points at the top level:

• Services - for those unfamiliar with the organization of the City who need to access specific things, and

• Departments - for those familiar with the current site who know where to find what they need.

Within the Parks and Recreation pages, the revised wireframe emphasized actions visitors wanted to take, such as scheduling a tee time or registering for a program.

Before

After

How We Succeeded: Analytics, Heuristic Evaluation, and Interviews

The City team and TUG began with a thorough review of web analytics and a heuristic evaluation of the website. Next, we interviewed stakeholders and site users who consistently revealed navigation and organizational challenges: the site was cluttered and organized around the hierarchy of the city government, not the needs of site visitors. People wanted to serve themselves but got hung up looking for what they wanted. The site’s web analytics showed visitors bouncing back and forth, looking for what they could not find.

We created a proposed navigation plan based on interviews, tested mock-ups of the proposed navigation with users, and provided annotated wireframes and specifications for the new homepage and navigation.