Test results for Scottish Borders 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 oneDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult453
Broken street lights - report
Bulky waste or other special waste collection - book
Complain about something the council has done
Council housing - apply for it
Council meeting - read the last full council minutes
Council news - find itGave upVery easyEasyUntested743
Council tax - pay it
Council tax / housing benefit - apply
Council tip - find a nearby one
Councillors - find who mine are
Cycling strategy - find it
Death - register one
Economic condition and strategy for the area - find itVery easyVery easyVery easyUntested943
Elections - find out when the next ones are
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on
Events - find council ones
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 - renew
Local history - find out about
Local library opening hours - find them
Local services and information on a map - look at
Market stall trading - find information about
Meals on Wheels - find information
Missed bin collection - complain about one
Noise nuisance - complain about itDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult453
Open Data - find someGave upGave upGave upUntested143
Parking - find out how much it costsGave upGave upGave upUntested145
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 oneVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy1053
Planning permission - apply for it
Population and census information - find it
Pothole - report oneEasyEasyEasyEasy853
Public toilets - find them
Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous yearGave upGave upGave upUntested145
Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find informationGave upGave upGave upUntested143
School places - apply for one
School term dates - find them
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 them
Stopping smoking services - find information
Supplying the council - find out how
Sustainability and climate change - find information on
Taxi driver - complain about oneGave upGave upGave upUntested145
Taxi licence - apply for oneEasyUntestedEasyVery hard543
Telephone number - find the main one
Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shop
Travellers - find information about themGave upGave upGave upUntested143
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 informationGave upGave upGave upUntested143
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores4852535925237  
Number of tests141413145 60 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)344454  

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

Blue badge - apply for one - 2014-03-04
Very easy to find the form itself, but the score gets downgraded to difficult because the option is to download a .pdf needing to be printed out and filled in with a pen. And 'Estimated download time: (56k = 16 secs)' - come on, this is 2014, not 1999!

Council news - find it - 2014-03-04
On the home page as expected. Surprised it didn't have an A-Z entry, though. For internal search I was considering marking it difficult on account of how far down the results it was

Economic condition and strategy for the area - find it - 2014-03-04
Navigating from the home page I found it under advice and support for businesses. This is not an intuitive place to find it.

Noise nuisance - complain about it - 2014-03-04
Found a page of waffly text generally about antisocial behaviour, but nothing concrete.

Open Data - find some - 2014-03-05
I found the FOI archive (uselessly categorised by date requested rather than by topic!) by navigation but not open data.

Parking - find out how much it costs - 2014-03-04
Presumably there are standard prices for charged on-street and pay and display? I couldn't find them by navigation. The roll-over menu in the header area was *incredibly* annoying.

Planning or building control violation - report one - 2014-03-04
Very easy to find the form from the Report It dropdown.

Pothole - report one - 2014-03-04
Would have been very easy if it wasn't for the number of redundant intermediate steps in navigation and the fact of the dropdown on the actual form not being in alphabetical order. Having the call to action button at the bottom of the intermediate pages also makes it less easy. These menus on the top row which open on hover really are unbelievably annoying.

Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous year - 2014-03-04
Marked as Very important because it's a legal requirement (I assume in Scotland as well as England) to publish it.

Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find information - 2014-03-04
Could find nothing at all.

Taxi driver - complain about one - 2014-03-04
It's fairly shocking I could find nothing at all about this.

Taxi licence - apply for one - 2014-03-04
Was Very easy to find the page in the A-Z index, but it loses points for the lack of clear introductory text and labelling for the forms and for the forms being .pdf documents needing to be printed out and filled in with a pen.

Travellers - find information about them - 2014-03-05
The only thing I could find remotely related was a comment on the education out of school page saying they aim to promote inclusive approaches to learning for travelling children, and some FOI requests.

Youth clubs in the area - find information - 2014-03-04
Navigation found nothing at all; A-Z found a page called 'Activities and support for young people', on which I could find no information about activities for young people. I did find a link to the information about regulation of children in entertainment from this page, at least. Maybe this council doesn't provide any youth clubs?