Test results for Southwark 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 - book
Complain about something the council has done
Council housing - apply for it
Council meeting - read the last full council minutes
Council news - find it
Council tax - pay it
Council tax / housing benefit - applyEasyEasyEasyEasy850
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 are
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information onGave upGave upGave upUntested140
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 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 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 namesEasyVery easyVery easyVery easy1055
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 one
Taxi licence - apply for one
Telephone number - find the main oneUntestedVery easyUntestedVery easy1031
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 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 aboutGave upVery easyVery easyUntested745
Youth clubs in the area - find information
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores3718392928151  
Number of tests54543 21 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)758797  

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

Council tax / housing benefit - apply - 2014-02-13
No method ideal, as all involved a bit of clicking around to find the information, but it did turn up. Quite a bit of text to wade through to apply.

Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on - 2014-02-10
Very large cookie warning - fail. Had to scan around Google top page to find a link that looked relevant "employment and equalities". Clicked on link to working for Southwark that led to awful third party site that b0rked. back button b0rked. Gave up. Southwark site painfully slow to respond. Still getting cookie warning. Go away! Internal search goes to "employment and equalities" page. 3rd party site worked this time, but has no relevant info. Gave up. A to Z turns up "Jobs - equal opportunites" page, but this ust contains ancient stats about diversity. Fail. Clciking on "Jobs" from home page leads to landing page. Nothing relevant to employment help for those with disabilities. Fail. A truly frustrating 10 minutes.

Telephone number - find the main one - 2014-04-17
Phone number is on the homepage so need to search for it.

Welfare reform - find information about - 2014-02-05
Page load time was slow and it was confusing at first for the topic navigation to be a drop down list.