Test results for Surrey County 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.

Grey rows indicate this council is not responsible for this task, but has been tested according to how well it signposts to the correct council.

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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 - book
Complain about something the council has done
Council housing - apply for itVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy1055
Council meeting - read the last full council minutes
Council news - find it
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 it
Elections - find out when the next ones areDifficultVery easyDifficultUntested672
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information onGave upVery easyEasyDifficult553
Events - find council onesVery easyVery easyVery easyUntested1041
Flood protection - find information
Food hygiene problem - report oneEasyVery easyEasyEasy753
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 aboutVery easyEasyEasyDifficult853
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 it
Open Data - find someVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult753
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 one
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 information
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 onGave upDifficultDifficultUntested343
Taxi driver - complain about one
Taxi licence - apply for one
Telephone number - find the main one
Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shop
Travellers - find information about them
Tree preservation order - apply for one
Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find it
Voting - register toVery easyDifficultDifficultEasy753
Vulnerable adult - express concern about one
Vulnerable child - express concern about one
Watch a webcast of a recent council or committee meetingVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy853
Welfare reform - find information about
Youth clubs in the area - find informationVery easyVery easyEasyEasy953
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores6684968652384  
Number of tests121211128 55 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)679777  

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

Elections - find out when the next ones are - 2014-02-10
No information on the site about when the next council elections are. Landing page strapline says find out about upcoming elections, but no information is given on the content page.

Elections - find out when the next ones are - 2014-02-24
There was no information about when the next council elections are. Council Elections was not in the A-Z

Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on - 2014-02-21
Page content is quite corporate and lots of focus on the EmployAbility service, who they are and why getting a job is important. Contact details a buried at the bottom of a fairly long page.

Local history - find out about - 2015-01-05
Whilst there are lots of pages containing local history information, there was no central page for how to get started.

Open Data - find some - 2014-02-28
Page is long. Links to the open data are at the end of the page - should they be at the top? Suggest anchor links?

Sustainability and climate change - find information on - 2014-04-14
Tricky, because climate change is under a topic called energy sustainability. Also difficulties in finding a general page on what Surrey is doing about climate change.

Voting - register to - 2014-02-21
Surrey doesn't deal with electoral roll which is handled by district and borough councils. Most searches find pages about the archives of electoral registers.

Watch a webcast of a recent council or committee meeting - 2014-02-14
Google came up with three direct hits. Internal search - 1st on list. Three pages of matches which is slight overkill. A to Z: "webcast" in list. "Council meetings" not in list. A lot of chaff in the lists, esp under C. A to Z link moves position as you move through the site - not gt usability really. Navigation - was a bit of a challenge to find the right path. "Your council" page was very link heavy. "Council meetings" was what I was struggling to find.