eServices is looking to recruit participants for a user research project. We're hoping to complete this part of the work over June and July.
Participant criteria
We are looking for participants that meet all, or most of the following criteria. You are:
- 19+ years of age;
- have used or thought about using a government program to hire employees;
- able to participate remotely via Teams, or in person; and
- can dedicate up to 1 hour to the research activity.
Planned user research activities
We've planned the following activities for this project:
- UX questionnaire. This will be an online activity where we email you a link to a questionnaire. We are aiming for this to take no longer than 10-15 minutes. This questionnaire will provide us with more data so we can identify barriers for people who use, or have tried to use a digital service.
- Usability testing. This will be an online activity. A researcher will send you a Teams meeting invitation and a link to a digital service. The researcher will ask you to perform 5-7 tasks while another member of the research team takes notes. This activity will take 1-hour.
User research activities we've completed
- Digital service analytics. We have looked at basic page analytics, transition reports and search data to understand if and how people access information related to this service.
- User feedback review. We've looked at user feedback submitted on Yukon.ca pages related to the program to understand how satisfied people are with the digital service.
Why we're conducting this user research
The short answer is to improve the user experience.
When we launch digital services and websites, the government is continuously working to improve the user experience. Our goal is always to design and deliver digital services that are simple and fast and strive to improve the user experience. To accomplish this, teams are required to conduct user research and usability testing before they launch a digital service.
Once a digital service launches to the public - we learn even more about what works and what might not be working. We look at analytics and the user feedback people submit to gauge how well the service is performing. That work has led us to this phase of the project.
We've left the live service as-is and we're in the process of implementing solutions to a prototype version of the service. Once that work is completed we will test half of the research participants on the live site, and half on the prototype. We want to see if the changes we've made:
- make it easier and faster for people to find what they're looking for;
- make it faster for people to access a digital service;
- make it faster for people to use the digital service;
- increase participant's confidence they have successfully completed a task, when they have; and
- reduce the amount of clicks it take a person to get to the information they need.
Benefits to participating in user research
We appreciate everyone who have participated in our user research projects. Based on these people, these are some of the benefits to being a research participant.
- It ensures a future iteration of the digital service will work better for you! This means less time to apply, fewer calls to get help with your application and less mistakes when you complete an application. All of these mean less time spent accessing the program.
- Your participation removes barriers for everyone using the digital service. Just by participating, you're also improving everyone's experience with a digital service.
- Provides a view into the inner workings of how the government improves digitial services.
- Connects you with the research team so you have a direct path to report usability issues or share your suggestions to improve a digital service.
- We'll share a summary of the user research with you so you can see what we learned and the solutions we put in place.
- We'll give you a heads-up when we plan to launch the improvements to the public so you can be one of the first to try them out.
- In this case, we'll do a draw where you can win 1 of 2 gift certificates to a local coffee shop of your choice.
How to participate
Email [email protected] if you are interested in participating in this user research.