OAK 311
here to help you with city service requests
Duration
April - June 2019
Tools
Sketch, Hotjar
my role
User research, User experience design, Content strategy
about
OAK 311 lets Oakland residents report a wide variety of non-urgent issues to the city government, including illegal dumping, broken traffic signals, and street repairs.
Since its launch in 2018, it has received over 100,000 requests for service via phone, email, mobile application, and online via oaklandca.gov.
“One of our highest priorities is to make Oakland a more responsive and transparent government.”
-mayor libby schaaf
goal
As one of the most direct ways for city residents to make requests and seek services, it’s crucial that OAK 311 be reliable and easy to use. I worked with the Digital Services Team to identify opportunities to improve the process of reporting a non-urgent problem online through the city’s website.
scope
My team focused on cost-effective and easy-to-implement improvements to pages on oaklandca.gov through user research, content strategy, and design.
Research
We collected quantitative data about how people use the website using Google Analytics and Hotjar.
We also solicited feedback through a survey widget, conducted user interviews and usability testing to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
This feedback was crucial for better understanding our users and creating design solutions tailored to their needs.
Prioritizing Content
To improve the usability and transparency of OAK 311, we arranged content in order from highest-to-lowest priority, eliminated redundant calls-to-action, and clarified information.
Aligning to User Needs
We simplified calls-to-action by de-emphasizing the distinction between urgent and non-urgent requests.
Creating a Clearer Path
As part of a larger effort to make Oaklandca.gov more services-oriented, we added 311 to the website’s top navigation. Visitors to the site can now navigate to the page from anywhere else on the site.
Since most requests are from just a few categories (illegal dumping accounts for 37% of all requests), we streamlined the process even further by adding direct links to the most common requests.
These changes helped to significantly reduce the number of steps involved in reporting online.
before
after
“This accident vehicle been here for [a] month, been reported numerous times. Still there”
Submitted May 7, 2019
Clarity and Transparency
Poll respondents and user interviewees expressed frustration that their complaints had not been answered, and that there was no way to check the status of the request.
We added a “How it works” section to help people understand how the OAK 311 process works and what they can expect once their problems have been reported.
Results
The new site design was launched in 2019. In the three months after it’s initial launch, analytics showed that people drilled down farther into the page, and clicks on secondary links increased by 150%.
Desktop Clickthrough Rate for oak 311 interactive map
Next steps
The timeframe and budget of this project did not include branding, public outreach, or redeveloping the SeeClickFix service that powers online requests. Nevertheless, we provided recommendations for improvements in all of these that we believe will help improve the visibility and effectiveness of OAK 311 in the future.