Hamilton City Council CASE STUDY: User Experience Design

Hamilton City Council asked Company-X to help design the user experience (UX) for new and upgraded content supporting their growth data, economic analytics and economic development programmes. The goal was to identify, understand, and attract their target audience and then ensure the information was presented in a way that addressed their core needs.

Hamilton City Council is the territorial local authority for Hamilton, incorporating an elected governance arm of twelve General Ward councillors, two citywide Kirikiriroa Maaori Ward councillors, and the mayor.

Its management structure consists of a Chief Executive and General Managers responsible for keeping the city ticking - through roads, water treatment, parks, visitor destinations and more. The Council also has a key role in creating a more vibrant, attractive and prosperous city.

With a complete update of the Hamilton City Council website underway, Council’s Growth Funding and Analytics unit sought to re-evaluate and improve the user experience for internal and external audiences who rely on the data, insights and products created as part of their work.

Unit Manager Greg Carstens wanted a solution that provided timely information to elected members and senior leadership within the organisation, while also addressing the needs of a broad and diverse group of external partners involved in the development and growth of Hamilton.

They were finding that increasingly complex decisions were requiring advanced analytics and key insights, all supported by data that was robust but also clear and direct.

Company-X software architect and senior developer Luke McGregor and senior user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) developer Cory McKenzie held several workshops with the Council’s Growth Funding and Analytics leaders to understand the aims and objectives of their section of the website.

McGregor and McKenzie developed eight personas for whom they would design the website user experience for. The personas included an elected member, managing director, management accountant, planning consultant, two property developers and a senior Government official. This exercise helped understand the types of goals and challenges of each user.

The research led to the creation of a user experience design with McKenzie creating conceptual wireframes for the council’s web partners to build.

Not every persona was included in the end design, some were encouraged to use the website as a contact point to request the data they needed.

Hamilton City Council’s Growth Funding and Analytics team gained a deeper understanding of how to balance the relationship between data and information and address the needs of a diverse set of users in a web-based environment.

“Even before the project started, we knew we were going to be working with experienced professionals who could deliver what we needed. Their guidance helped us understand how to identify and analyse our audience and their unique needs. We were impressed by the way Company-X quickly gripped up the unique elements of our organisation and delivered a solution that had a meaningful impact as we moved forward with the website. I am definitely looking forward to working with the team again.”

Hamilton City Council Economic Development Manager Mike Bennett