Test results for Bracknell Forest 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 systemsGave upEasyDifficultEasy455
Adult education courses - find informationVery easyVery easyGave upEasy793
Antisocial behaviour - complain about itVery easyVery easyDifficultEasy753
Blue badge - apply for oneVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult953
Broken street lights - reportEasyVery easyVery easyVery easy9143
Bulky waste or other special waste collection - book
Complain about something the council has doneVery easyEasyDifficultVery easy853
Council housing - apply for itVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult953
Council meeting - read the last full council minutesDifficultDifficultGave upDifficult353
Council news - find itVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy992
Council tax - pay itVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy1083
Council tax / housing benefit - applyDifficultVery easyDifficultVery hard553
Council tip - find a nearby oneVery easyVery easyEasyUntested1043
Councillors - find who mine areEasyEasyEasyEasy853
Cycling strategy - find itEasyDifficultGave upEasy450
Death - register oneVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy9143
Economic condition and strategy for the area - find itEasyGave upGave upDifficult453
Elections - find out when the next ones areEasyEasyVery easyEasy853
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information onDifficultEasyGave upDifficult453
Events - find council onesGave upDifficultDifficultUntested343
Flood protection - find informationVery easyVery easyGave upEasy753
Food hygiene problem - report oneDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult693
Freedom of Information Act request - make oneVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy853
Housing repair - request oneVery easyEasyDifficultUntested843
Jobs - find a council jobVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1053
Leisure centres close to me - find oneDifficultEasyGave upUntested443
Leisure discount card - apply for one
Library book - renewVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1053
Local history - find out aboutGave upVery easyVery easyDifficult653
Local library opening hours - find themEasyVery easyVery easyVery easy1053
Local services and information on a map - look atGave upDifficultGave upUntested343
Market stall trading - find information aboutVery easyVery easyDifficultVery easy953
Meals on Wheels - find informationVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy8103
Missed bin collection - complain about oneVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult9143
Noise nuisance - complain about itDifficultVery easyEasyDifficult7103
Open Data - find someGave upVery easyVery easyVery easy653
Parking - find out how much it costsEasyEasyDifficultEasy792
Parking fine - pay oneVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1053
Petitions - create oneVery easyDifficultVery easyEasy753
Planning application - comment on oneVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult853
Planning committee meeting - find when the next one isEasyEasyDifficultUntested743
Planning or building control violation - report oneDifficultGave upGave upDifficult253
Planning permission - apply for itEasyEasyDifficultDifficult772
Population and census information - find itVery easyVery easyGave upEasy753
Pothole - report oneVery easyEasyEasyEasy8103
Public toilets - find themGave upGave upGave upUntested143
Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous yearVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult850
Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find informationEasyVery easyDifficultEasy753
School places - apply for oneEasyVery easyEasyDifficult8103
School term dates - find themVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy1053
Scrutiny committee reports and minutes - find themEasyDifficultDifficultUntested543
Senior staff and politicians in the council - find their namesVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1055
Small business support - find informationEasyVery easyEasyEasy8143
Social media accounts - find themGave upVery easyVery easyVery easy853
Stopping smoking services - find informationGave upVery easyVery easyEasy7153
Supplying the council - find out howGave upGave upDifficultEasy453
Sustainability and climate change - find information onEasyVery easyDifficultDifficult753
Taxi driver - complain about oneGave upGave upGave upUntested143
Taxi licence - apply for oneVery easyVery easyEasyEasy951
Telephone number - find the main oneDifficultVery easyDifficultEasy753
Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shopDifficultDifficultDifficultUntested443
Travellers - find information about themDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult4143
Tree preservation order - apply for oneDifficultEasyEasyDifficult653
Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find itVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult8103
Voting - register toEasyVery easyGave upEasy653
Vulnerable adult - express concern about oneGave upEasyGave upDifficult353
Vulnerable child - express concern about oneEasyDifficultDifficultUntested643
Watch a webcast of a recent council or committee meeting
Welfare reform - find information aboutEasyGave upDifficultDifficult453
Youth clubs in the area - find informationDifficultEasyDifficultUntested543
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores4234655233983822190  
Number of tests9089868772 424 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)556555  

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

Address - change mine on council systems - 2014-02-28
Council tax - easy through online form benfits - paperbased form

Adult education courses - find information - 2014-03-13
Community learning is used rather than "adult"

Blue badge - apply for one - 2014-02-27
Very wordy.

Broken street lights - report - 2014-03-11
The page is very wordy

Broken street lights - report - 2014-10-10
found myself stuck on https://bracknell-forest.achieveservice.com/#/module/home and could not get back to the homepage. would expect home button here to take me back to homepage

Council housing - apply for it - 2014-02-28
Long page with a lot of different information (find an affordable rented home)

Council meeting - read the last full council minutes - 2014-03-17
It is quite complicated to navigate through modern.gov to find them

Council news - find it - 2014-03-18
Pages with the word "news" appearing in google results.

Council tax / housing benefit - apply - 2014-03-07
Ran task on council tax. Two pages: one in Benefits, one in Council tax. Benefits page: very long page. Could this be distilled into shorter, more useful pages?

Economic condition and strategy for the area - find it - 2014-03-18
Content is spread around in various places

Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on - 2014-03-18
Breakthrough supported employment - but very difficult to find if you don't know what it's called. Search only returned documents.

Events - find council ones - 2014-03-18
There are events scattered around, but no central place to find information

Food hygiene problem - report one - 2014-02-28
Food safety page doesn't have a link to the report form for hygine. The enquiry form is very low down the page. A-Z entry for form?

Food hygiene problem - report one - 2014-03-20
There is a popular service to report a food item complaint on the food hygiene training page, but it is not clearly sign posted.

Housing repair - request one - 2014-03-20
Content is on 3rd party website

Jobs - find a council job - 2014-03-20
Job content is hosted on jobsgopublic

Leisure centres close to me - find one - 2014-03-12
There is no easy way to find out leisure centres in relation to proximity

Local history - find out about - 2014-03-05
The information that most people are likely to be looking for on finding out about their familiy history is quite far down the page, below 'reminiscences groups.' This information could be condenced into a table perhaps?

Local services and information on a map - look at - 2014-03-13
There is only really the localview map - which isn't very easy to find or user friendly

Market stall trading - find information about - 2014-02-27
Internal search didn't provide the most relevant results

Meals on Wheels - find information - 2014-03-13
Google search took to desktop page. Page was very wordy and directed out to the ihub - but there was a deep link to community meals page

Missed bin collection - complain about one - 2014-03-10
Report a missed bin section is at the end of the page - customers may not scroll down that far.

Missed bin collection - complain about one - 2014-12-09
Only a phone number to report bin collection missed. An email address or online form would be much more useful.

Noise nuisance - complain about it - 2014-03-17
Reporting a noise nuisance is right at the bottom. There is a lot of information on the page that a customer won't be interested in.

Open Data - find some - 2014-03-07
Open data is on a seperate site.

Parking - find out how much it costs - 2014-03-18
Would be helpful for page to be presented consistently using tables

Parking - find out how much it costs - 2014-12-09
When searched, pages about parking at The Look Out and Coral Reef appear before parking in town centre. With local knowledge, this is fine, but may confuse visitors.

Petitions - create one - 2014-03-18
Other websites appeared much higher in the google search results

Planning application - comment on one - 2014-03-17
Page is very wordy.

Planning committee meeting - find when the next one is - 2014-03-18
Planning committee dates on modern.gov, so you have to click elsewhere to find the information. Page is very wordy.

Planning or building control violation - report one - 2014-03-07
Internal search only found 2 unrelated PDFs

Planning permission - apply for it - 2014-03-18
The page is very long and wordy

Pothole - report one - 2014-03-13
Internal search takes you to desktop page Google search also takes you to desktop page Content page itself is too wordy

Public toilets - find them - 2014-03-18
No content on website

Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous year - 2014-02-28
The page is very long and the relevant reporting is at the end of the page.

Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find information - 2014-03-07
PDF's only in the internal search

School places - apply for one - 2014-03-18
This task is seasonal.

School places - apply for one - 2014-12-09
Confusing different forms for different schools, and confused by the explanation of ages/years/when to apply etc.

Scrutiny committee reports and minutes - find them - 2014-03-05
Are scutiny committee reports different to whats on the 'reports and responses' page?

Small business support - find information - 2014-03-05
quite long and nothing specifically for small businesses

Small business support - find information - 2014-03-12
Content relates to businesses in general rather than specifically "small" businesses

Social media accounts - find them - 2014-03-10
No A-Z link for 'social media'.

Stopping smoking services - find information - 2014-03-04
Capitalisation of headings

Stopping smoking services - find information - 2014-03-12
Would be good to add link to https://www.smokefreelife.co.uk/ web page

Sustainability and climate change - find information on - 2014-03-18
No A-Z for sustainability. Internal search - documents coming up first. Very long and wordy page using complex language.

Taxi driver - complain about one - 2014-03-11
This content doesn't appear to be on the website

Taxi licence - apply for one - 2014-02-27
not an online transaction

Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shop - 2014-03-20
Page refers you to the citizens advice website. There is an online form for consumer complaints, but its not very well sign-posted.

Travellers - find information about them - 2014-03-07
Page, when found, is called 'Unauthorised encampments' - how meaningful is this to the customer? Search finds PDFs over the page.

Travellers - find information about them - 2014-03-20
Content only refers to unauthorised encampments and how to report

Tree preservation order - apply for one - 2014-03-18
A-z link didn't go to TPO page. Not easy to find out if a tree has a TPO

Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find it - 2014-03-18
Documents appeared at top of internal search. Lots of PDF documents on page.

Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find it - 2014-06-24
short and to the point. best way to make easy reading of what can be (to some) a very dry subject.

Voting - register to - 2014-02-27
Electoral roll is called electoral register on this site. It's not obvious from the homepage which may be something to consoider with upcoming elections.

Vulnerable adult - express concern about one - 2014-02-28
Page content is focused on social workers. There is no/little information on if you are a member of the public looking to report a concern. Safeguarding concern form isn't linked and isn't particulary well named in this instance.

Vulnerable child - express concern about one - 2014-03-18
Only option given is to phone

Welfare reform - find information about - 2014-03-18
Welfare rights - financial advice page. Takes ot to GOV.UK page, but need to apply through council if eligible.

Youth clubs in the area - find information - 2014-03-18
"Youth support" used rather than "youth clubs". Google result takes you to specific club page rather than general info page.