In an ongoing effort to make government data more transparent, open and customer-focused, the City of Austin has upgraded the user interface and reorganized content for their open data portal, Data.austintexas.gov.
As part of Austin's Open Data Initiative, the City consulted with the open data community on the design, content and navigation of the portal’s old and new homepages, including the existing data category taxonomy. In an online survey, more than half of the respondents rated their happiness with the old homepage a three out of five stars. Additionally, when asked what words best describe the previous homepage, the top three words were “confusing,” “overwhelming,” and “complex.”
Read the survey results finding report (pdf) to learn more about the comprehensive user sentiments and insights.
The valuable usability feedback provided by the survey respondents was analyzed, prioritized and integrated into the newly redesigned portal. Enhancements include:
- improved visibility of search, navigation and popular content;
- a simple, modern design that is responsive to mobile devices; and
- an overall more effective, usable and coherent user experience for citizens to easily access and leverage open data
The new portal was launched on May 11, 2016. Users of the site are encouraged to search through available datasets and download data for civic innovation, as well as participate in the development and future direction of the site by suggesting datasets to be added to the platform.
For more about the City of Austin's Open Data Initiative, go to data.austintexas.gov.
