Test results for Birmingham City Council

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According to our records, this website last had a major update on 2016-08-01 - webteam members can update this information themselves.

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TaskNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTestsImportance
Address - change mine on council systemsDifficultVery easyVery easyVery easy893
Adult education courses - find informationEasyVery easyEasyUntested8123
Antisocial behaviour - complain about itVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult7133
Blue badge - apply for oneVery easyVery easyEasyUntested9123
Broken street lights - reportVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy10143
Bulky waste or other special waste collection - bookUntestedVery easyVery easyEasy853
Complain about something the council has doneEasyEasyEasyVery easy8173
Council housing - apply for itVery easyDifficultDifficultUntested583
Council meeting - read the last full council minutesGave upGave upGave upUntested1114
Council news - find itGave upVery easyVery easyEasy8133
Council tax - pay itVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1094
Council tax / housing benefit - applyVery easyEasyVery easyDifficult9143
Council tip - find a nearby oneDifficultVery easyEasyVery easy793
Councillors - find who mine areVery easyVery easyDifficultEasy8134
Cycling strategy - find itGave upDifficultDifficultEasy4213
Death - register oneVery easyEasyEasyVery easy793
Economic condition and strategy for the area - find itVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy8133
Elections - find out when the next ones areDifficultDifficultDifficultDifficult5134
Employment help for people with disabilities - find information onGave upDifficultDifficultUntested4123
Events - find council onesGave upVery easyDifficultVery hard6173
Flood protection - find informationEasyDifficultDifficultVery hard494
Food hygiene problem - report oneVery easyEasyDifficultDifficult7134
Freedom of Information Act request - make oneVery easyEasyEasyVery easy8134
Housing repair - request oneVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy9173
Jobs - find a council jobVery easyEasyEasyDifficult9134
Leisure centres close to me - find oneGave upVery easyDifficultUntested693
Leisure discount card - apply for oneDifficultEasyEasyDifficult8153
Library book - renewGave upDifficultVery easyUntested6133
Local history - find out aboutDifficultEasyDifficultUntested6133
Local library opening hours - find themGave upVery easyDifficultUntested694
Local services and information on a map - look atGave upGave upGave upDifficult3113
Market stall trading - find information aboutEasyEasyEasyUntested893
Meals on Wheels - find informationVery easyVery easyVery easyUntested1053
Missed bin collection - complain about oneDifficultEasyVery easyUntested893
Noise nuisance - complain about itVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy1093
Open Data - find someDifficultDifficultDifficultUntested353
Parking - find out how much it costsEasyEasyEasyDifficult7143
Parking fine - pay oneEasyVery easyVery easyEasy9103
Petitions - create oneVery easyVery easyDifficultVery easy963
Planning application - comment on oneVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy963
Planning committee meeting - find when the next one isEasyEasyEasyUntested653
Planning or building control violation - report oneDifficultDifficultGave upDifficult363
Planning permission - apply for itVery easyVery easyVery easyVery easy1064
Population and census information - find itEasyEasyVery easyVery easy8103
Pothole - report oneVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult9103
Public toilets - find themVery easyVery easyVery easyUntested653
Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous yearGave upEasyDifficultEasy5114
Regulation of children on stage, film, and television - find informationDifficultVery easyVery easyVery easy862
School places - apply for oneVery easyVery easyVery easyDifficult8143
School term dates - find themVery easyVery easyEasyEasy9183
Scrutiny committee reports and minutes - find themEasyEasyEasyDifficult663
Senior staff and politicians in the council - find their namesUntestedUntestedUntestedVery easy923
Small business support - find informationGave upEasyGave upEasy563
Social media accounts - find themDifficultVery easyVery easyDifficult863
Stopping smoking services - find informationGave upGave upGave upUntested152
Supplying the council - find out howDifficultEasyDifficultVery easy6104
Sustainability and climate change - find information onGave upVery easyEasyUntested593
Taxi driver - complain about oneDifficultEasyDifficultUntested593
Taxi licence - apply for oneEasyEasyDifficultDifficult7142
Telephone number - find the main oneDifficultGave upGave upDifficult4264
Trading Standards - complain about a dodgy item from a shopVery easyVery easyEasyDifficult764
Travellers - find information about themVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy8113
Tree preservation order - apply for oneEasyVery easyVery easyUntested7173
Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find itVery easyVery easyVery easyEasy8103
Voting - register toEasyVery easyVery easyDifficult9163
Vulnerable adult - express concern about oneDifficultEasyVery easyDifficult7103
Vulnerable child - express concern about oneGave upEasyEasyDifficult7103
Watch a webcast of a recent council or committee meetingGave upVery easyGave upVery easy664
Welfare reform - find information aboutGave upVery easyVery easyEasy7103
Youth clubs in the area - find informationDifficultEasyDifficultUntested593
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
Total scores4374365545073472280  
Number of tests23312815815963 741 
Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)234363  

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

Adult education courses - find information - 2016-09-16
Google took me to http://www.learnbaes.ac.uk/; internally, being under Schools and Learning may make some people miss it thinking that section is just for children.

Antisocial behaviour - complain about it - 2016-09-16
There doesn't appear to be much that you can actually report; what's the point of it? There's no clue of where it could be in the main navigation.

Broken street lights - report - 2018-09-18
took me 2 clicks to get to the page with the broken streetlights form

Council housing - apply for it - 2017-01-11
Started off easy enough, but was taken to a separate website where I had to give up. Internal search results were useless. Navigation was useless - I couldn't find anything referring to council housing in the navigation.

Council meeting - read the last full council minutes - 2017-01-11
I get to a page called CMIS - Committee Management Information System, which I assume is the place, but from the very, very, very long introductory text on the page it appears you have to register in order to access any minutes. This is outrageous.

Council meeting - read the last full council minutes - 2019-10-10
That was very confusing. I found the committee section of the website very easily, but got lost from here onward. I didn't understand what the icons were for, so mostly ignored them to start off with.

Council news - find it - 2017-01-11
The latest news on https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/news seemed to be from a week ago.

Council tax / housing benefit - apply - 2017-01-11
The readability of the pages as I went through the process just got harder and harder. There's a lot of confusion around Universal Credit, but to be fair I'd hope that real benefit claimants would be better able to know what it is they're claiming for.

Councillors - find who mine are - 2017-01-11
I'm sure the wording on the page /councillors could be snappier

Cycling strategy - find it - 2017-01-11
I found half a page of aspiration, but no actual detail of strategy. They appear to have a separate dedicated cycling website, but I couldn't find anything there either.

Death - register one - 2017-01-11
The initial information page is easy enough to find, but it tells me I need to make an appointment to do it in person, but it doesn't offer an online appointments system.

Economic condition and strategy for the area - find it - 2017-01-11
I'd actually go as far as saying this actual section of the site is an excellent example of good practice for other councils to follow! It's a shame though I could only find it by search, I gave up looking for it by navigation.

Elections - find out when the next ones are - 2017-01-11
I found the date of the next election from an internal search which took me to an election results page, almost as a footnote. I wouldn't expect to find the date of the next election on the page about past elections. Couldn't find any information by navigating.

Employment help for people with disabilities - find information on - 2017-01-12
I assume this council doesn't offer this service.

Events - find council ones - 2017-01-12
It's easy to find the events section, but finding events I might be interested in is terrible - there's no categorisation by event type, and most of the events listed are ongoing activities like martial arts classes, rather than individual events on specific dates. The link from the home page could very easily be missed.

Events - find council ones - 2024-11-11
It was easy to find the events page, but I've marked the Readability score as Very difficult on account of the large number of events which have been logged as starting at the beginning of the year and ending at the end of the year but would actually have been eg 12 monthly events. The internal search results were mostly irrelevant.

Flood protection - find information - 2017-01-12
I found a page for reporting that the street was flooded but no information about flood protection by search. I did find some information by navigation, but the user journey was very convoluted.

Food hygiene problem - report one - 2017-01-12
Finding the form via search was really easy. Once I got to the form it was terrible - some address boxes wouldn't accept input, and the nuance of whether I'm reporting a food product complaint or a food business complaint is lost on me. Navigating from the home page I found it from both Business, and Environment, though I'm not sure either of those options would be obvious to most people.

Freedom of Information Act request - make one - 2017-01-12
Finding the form was easy, but the actual form itself was awful.

Jobs - find a council job - 2017-01-12
Finding the jobs page is easy, but the display of the full list of jobs is really difficult to scan through.

Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous year - 2024-11-11
What does need noting is that for each of the three different routes I ended up on three completely different pages. This may not be considered a good thing.

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