Test results for South Tyneside Council

According to our records, this website hasn't had a major update since it was first registered with us - webteam members can update this information themselves.

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TaskNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTestsImportance
Address - change mine on council systems
Adult education courses - find information
Antisocial behaviour - complain about it
Blue badge - apply for one
Broken street lights - report
Bulky waste or other special waste collection - bookUntestedUntestedVery easyDifficult833
Complain about something the council has done
Council housing - apply for itUntestedUntestedVery easyVery easy1033
Council meeting - read the last full council minutes
Council news - find it
Council tax - pay it
Council tax / housing benefit - applyEasyEasyEasyVery easy851
Council tip - find a nearby one
Councillors - find who mine areUntestedVery easyVery easyVery easy1043
Cycling strategy - find it
Death - register one
Economic condition and strategy for the area - find it
Elections - find out when the next ones are
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on
Events - find council onesUntestedUntestedDifficultEasy733
Flood protection - find information
Food hygiene problem - report one
Freedom of Information Act request - make one
Housing repair - request one
Jobs - find a council job
Leisure centres close to me - find one
Leisure discount card - apply for one
Library book - renewUntestedUntestedEasyVery easy933
Local history - find out about
Local library opening hours - find them
Local services and information on a map - look atUntestedUntestedEasyUntested823
Market stall trading - find information about
Meals on Wheels - find information
Missed bin collection - complain about one
Noise nuisance - complain about it
Open Data - find some
Parking - find out how much it costs
Parking fine - pay one
Petitions - create one
Planning application - comment on one
Planning committee meeting - find when the next one is
Planning or building control violation - report oneUntestedUntestedDifficultEasy533
Planning permission - apply for it
Population and census information - find it
Pothole - report one
Public toilets - find them
Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous year
Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find informationUntestedUntestedGave upUntested123
School places - apply for one
School term dates - find themUntestedUntestedDifficultVery hard333
Scrutiny committee reports and minutes - find them
Senior staff and politicians in the council - find their names
Small business support - find information
Social media accounts - find themUntestedUntestedVery easyVery easy1033
Stopping smoking services - find information
Supplying the council - find out howUntestedUntestedVery easyVery easy1033
Sustainability and climate change - find information on
Taxi driver - complain about one
Taxi licence - apply for oneUntestedUntestedVery easyVery easy1033
Telephone number - find the main one
Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shopUntestedVery easyEasyVery easy1041
Travellers - find information about them
Tree preservation order - apply for one
Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find it
Voting - register to
Vulnerable adult - express concern about one
Vulnerable child - express concern about one
Watch a webcast of a recent council or committee meeting
Welfare reform - find information about
Youth clubs in the area - find information
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores113828105101355  
Number of tests14131412 44 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)889888  

About the scores

Each task can be tested according to five different criteria - navigation from the home page, navigation using the A-Z directory (where present), searching on Google, searching using the site's internal search, and the readability of the page. Scores are assigned according to 10 = Very easy, 8 = Easy, 4 = Difficult, and 1 = Gave up. As more users complete any given test, the score for each aspect of each task becomes a mean average of all the individual testers scores, and thus the more tests are completed the more reliable an indication of the usability of the website can be seen. The total scores in the table are thus the sum of the averaged scores for the whole suite of tasks which have been tested.

The Usability Index is the sum of the scores of all the tests which have been carried out, divided by the number of tests which have been taken for this council, resulting in an index score between 1 and 10, with 6 being the score which a nominallly usable website with room for improvement might be expected to achieve. If any criteria have had fewer than 15 tests, or the site as a whole has had fewer than 50 individually tested items, the final Index scores are shown in a grey background to indicate insufficient testing for the result to be a reliable indicator.

The Importance column shows the mean average of how important all the testers considered the ability to complete this task to be, ranging from 0 = Unimportant to 5 = Very important.

Specific comments made about this council

Bulky waste or other special waste collection - book - 2016-07-21
The first part of the page was very readable, but it was sadly let down by the very long list of what you can put out, which would have been better as a shorter list of 'such as...' items; it would also have been good to have had a list of examples of the kinds of things which are not collected.

Events - find council ones - 2016-07-21
There were a number of pages called What's on in the internal search results, which showed slightly different things, so I wouldn't have known which was the definitive one.

Library book - renew - 2016-07-21
I'm not sure why a PIN is needed to renew or reserve library books - what's the actual security risk which is being solved here?

Local services and information on a map - look at - 2016-07-21
(I think the actual mapping server might have been down at the time of testing)

Planning or building control violation - report one - 2016-07-21
It was easy enough to find the page with the information about making a complaint, but it seems you have to do it by phone rather than being able to do it online. I think the term 'planning enforcement' sounds like a council term rather than a user term.

School term dates - find them - 2016-07-21
Search results had several pages with the same name - it appeared they were the term dates for each individual school; do they differ from school to school? On the page I went to the first thing I saw was a big calendar which was quite confusing. Navigating from the home page was similarly difficult.

Taxi licence - apply for one - 2016-07-21
It's good that there's an option to complete the form with or without logging in, but I'm not sure about branding the forms as e-services - it's a bit 1998!

Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shop - 2014-07-31
Going straight to the trading standards page you can find the complaint form very easily. You can't seem to hit the form straight from Google and the internal search delivers a bit of a misleading 'make complaint' top result that's actually for a nuisance complaint.