Case Study - Revitalising the City of Port Phillip's business permit system

Challenge

The City of Port Phillip's website struggled with poor content quality, readability, and findability, making business permit information disorganized and challenging to navigate. This confusion led to users abandoning the site and often resorting to phone calls for assistance.

Solution

LEVO undertook a comprehensive approach, blending research, stakeholder collaboration, content strategy, and user experience enhancements to tackle the City of Port Phillip's website challenges effectively. Our holistic strategy focused on modernizing and optimizing the business permit system through various methods, including information architecture refinement, content rewriting, navigation improvements, rapid prototyping, and user testing.

Impact

LEVO's intervention transformed the City of Port Phillip's Business Permit System into a modern, digitized, and user-friendly platform. This renovation not only made the permit process more accessible and efficient for business owners but also fostered potential local economic growth. The modernized system attracted more businesses, increasing overall satisfaction among business owners.

Our approach

• Research and Alignment: Conducted thorough desktop and customer research, along with stakeholder alignment workshops, to understand user expectations and identify opportunities for digital enhancements.
• Information Architecture and Content Strategy: Developed a new Information Architecture (IA) and content model for permits to solve content quality and findability issues, ensuring a more organized website structure. Rewrote content for approximately 80 pages relevant to businesses and established guidelines for ongoing content maintenance.
• Navigation and Usability: Recommended navigation structures and page naming conventions to enhance website content findability, significantly improving the user experience.
• Prototyping and Testing: Rapidly prototyped digitized experiences for key interactions and conducted both moderated and unmoderated user testing with City of Port Phillip residents, assessing desirability and usability.
• Design and Implementation: Prioritized and designed the best-performing prototypes based on testing feedback, delivering validated solutions with functional specifications for the City of Port Phillip's website team.

Outcome

The redesigned Business Permit System received positive feedback for its visual appeal, ease of navigation, and improved accessibility. Overcoming challenges such as stakeholder consensus, bureaucratic navigation, and compliance with regulations, LEVO's solution significantly enhanced the permit process's attractiveness and efficiency. The modernized and digitized system not only benefits the city and its business owners by making the process more straightforward but also contributes to the local economy's potential growth.

Conclusion

LEVO's extensive approach successfully revitalized the City of Port Phillip's Business Permit System. By addressing key website challenges and modernizing the permit process, we've delivered a more attractive, efficient, and user-friendly system. This success story underscores our commitment to enhancing digital experiences and fostering economic growth within communities.