City of Alexandria
The staff who maintain the Web site for the City of Alexandria, Va. recognized its value as a resource for a variety of audiences including residents, visitors, businesses, and city employees. But the site was not presenting the information in a format that could be easily accessed by all users. As the pages experienced varying levels of design inconsistency and accessibility compliance, the City engaged Beaconfire to conduct a usability and accessibility audit to help prioritize simple short-term improvements and provide a baseline for a longer-term redesign initiative. Using a standard diagnostic tool, Beaconfire qualitatively scored of the site's usability performance. The findings were presented in an illustrated report and presentation to key stakeholders including city department leaders.
The Challenge: The City of Alexandria wished to identify and analyze usability and accessibility deficiencies in its existing site. Because the City's site featured tens of thousands of pages with widely diverse subsites, there was a wide variation in design, navigational motifs, and accessibility compliance. Moreover, a single city department was responsible for executing all content updates to the site. Content submissions flowed in from nearly 40 departments in varying states of "Web-readiness." This workflow contributed to an inefficient process and often led to ineffective online communication. The City also wished to create a written Web style guide that would guide the department's content submissions and improve their knowledge of preparing content that could be easily accessed by people with disabilities
The Solution: The City engaged Beaconfire to conduct a usability and accessibility audit. The scope of the evaluation included the homepage, five representative subsections, and two applications. Beaconfire used its standard Web Audit Diagnostic to conduct a quantitative scoring of the site's performance against twelve diagnostic categories. The diagnostic categories included content, branding, architecture, metadata, typography, and error handing, among others. The project also included an evaluation of the site according to the Federal Government's Section 508 Accessibility Guidelines, a common benchmark for ensuring that online content can be accessed by people who are visually impaired or have a motor disability, for example.
Beaconfire met with city staff to identify the distinct audience groups who visit the site and the critical tasks they perform. With input from the City, Beaconfire defined the scope of the evaluation and created a detailed work plan. Beaconfire provided a formal project briefing to the City's key stakeholders and commenced with the evaluation.
The assessment resulted in a detailed Web Audit document that identified specific "quick win" improvements that the City could execute immediately, as well as future recommendations. Additionally, Beaconfire authored a "Web Style Guide" to enhance Web content preparation, streamline the submission process, and improve accessibility compliance. The audit's findings were formally presented to key stakeholders including staff, members of the City's citizen Web advisory group, and department heads.