Open Checkbook Detroit
A User Testing project aimed to help Detroit's CFO develop a responsive site to share the city's vendor spending data with the public.
Stock Image
THE PROBLEM
Open Checkbook, a responsive website created by The Detroit Mayor's office to share the city's vendor spending history with the public, needs to be tested by users.
Based on insights from the team at the Mayor's Office and Data Driven Detroit, there were known issues with the website that we needed to test with users to accumulate empirical evidence to substantiate changes that needed to be made to the website.
Since my team wasn't apart of the design process of the website from the beginning, it took us time to familiarize ourselves with the website and understand how to approach the problem and what questions needed to be asked.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
This project took 22 days from start to final presentation.
MAKE OF THE TEAM
The team was comprised of 5 students from the University of Michigan's School of Information
KEY GOAL
Evaluate tool based on user tests and make recommendations.
MY ROLE
For this project I assumed the role of project manager as there was no leader designated to keep the group on track and meet our target goals.
I helped develop the interview protocols, conducted 3 user interviews, organized the raw data from all of the interviews which was included in the appendix of the report.
​
After working to synthesize our findings the group created the final report which was shared with the City of Detroit Mayor's Office. I contributed by creating a persona and scenario along with writing the findings section and finally lead the culminating presentation to our stakeholders.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
The end users for this tool are people who live in Detroit and are skeptical or curious about how the city spends its money
Residents of Detroit may lack trust in their city officials and it is the City's hope that by increasing transparency and sharing more information with residents of Detroit, some of that trust can be rebuilt.
​
My team and I got to know users by conducting interviews with them and user tests. The users were curious, skeptical about the city's government and needed to know more about what was going on with city spending they live in the City of Detroit and might own property or have a different cultural stake in the actions of the local government.
Novice Persona
Angela is 47 and works two jobs so she can afford her house and car payments. She doesn’t bother spending money on the latest technology and has a cell phone model that’s 4 years old. She doesn’t own a personal laptop. She would like to have more time to dedicate to local government and what’s going on with the city, but if it isn’t on the 11pm news, then she likely hasn't heard other developments.
Scenario
Angela’s child shares a website he has to use for an assignment in school. Angela visits the site on her phone. On the Detroit Public Schools page she reads “pass through payments” but doesn’t understand what it means, she tries to click the term but nothing happens. Glancing at the time on her phone she remembers she needs to check in on her mom to make sure she’s eaten dinner and puts her phone away.
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
While we were able to meet our deadline, it required substantially more time than initially expected.
To start, we drafted an interview protocol and user test task list which we sent to the stakeholders for feedback. The stakeholders were helpful in framing the problem for us and were specific about which parts of the website they would like to be tested.
They also wanted the website to be tested on mobile devices only because they expect the tool to be accessed predominantly on mobile devices. The main element of the tool's design did not translate well on mobile devices, so it was difficult to work with and to evaluate what changes needed to be made in order to improve the experience.
​
After revising the protocol and task list, my team held interviews with potential users at a public library, synthesized our findings in a report which we presented to the Mayor's Office and Data Driven Detroit.
Here are two screen shots showing the Open Checkbook site on a mobile device which my team was asked to test with Detroit citizens
THESE WERE SOME KEY FINDINGS WHICH LEAD TO OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
Change the bar chart's style
The chart style (horizontally oriented bar chart) was very hard to read on mobile screens, even when turned horizontally. It was also unclear what area is able to be clicked on. The mobile phone experience should be optimized vertically to improve readability.
Reduce click target areas
We suggested the search bar be moved to the top navigation bar because it was hard for users to navigate to in its original location. Including the ability to auto correct spelling would also be helpful. The current search bar acts like a scrolling menu.
Add a "Help" tab for the glossary
Users struggled to find the Glossary of terms which our stakeholders were eager for us to test. The Glossary is nestled under the About tab which users found misleading and suggested instead putting it under a Help or FAQ labeled tab.
LESSONS LEARNED
This was a great experience to have early in my career because it taught me how to work in a group quickly and to not worry about asking "stupid" questions.
Looking back on the experience now, I realize the group needed to immediately find common times when we could met up front because scheduling was very difficult, accommodating everyone's class schedule.
​
Also it was interesting so see that even though the website had clear issues on mobile devices, the issues still needed to be substantiated by user testing in order for changes to be made by the development team. Even if something is clearly misleading, it still needs to be proven by users in order to back up the change.