Test results for Carlisle City Council

Welcome,

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.

Grey rows indicate this council is not responsible for this task, but has been tested according to how well it signposts to the correct council.

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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 - apply
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 on
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 names
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 one
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 about
Youth clubs in the area - find information
TotalsNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchReadabilityScoreTests 
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Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests)000000  

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

Antisocial behaviour - complain about it - 2014-04-14
On internal search, it did not come up with the antisocial behaviour page which is on the website

Broken street lights - report - 2014-04-14
Transfers to County Council website, easy to find form and fill out.

Councillors - find who mine are - 2014-04-14
Using the direct search was more effective. Found it took more time when navigating from the council homepage.

Elections - find out when the next ones are - 2014-06-17
The information does not appear to be on the website - there is a link saying "find out when the next elections are" but it doesn't tell you when you get to the page. Some information is out of date ("the next County elections are in 2013").The elections results link doesn't take you to the 2014 election results - they are on a separate page. Google didn't help until, on a whim, I put in elections 2015 and found the following link, which, if you scroll right down, shows that there will be an election in Carlisle in 2015: http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/elec2015.htm

Food hygiene problem - report one - 2014-04-14
Easy to find and understand. The report form was simple and would not take very long to fill out.

Freedom of Information Act request - make one - 2014-04-14
Easy to find comtact details to request an FOI.

Jobs - find a council job - 2014-04-14
Informative and easy to follow how to apply for job vacancies.

Market stall trading - find information about - 2014-02-11
Street Trading brings up the pages needed but, Market Stalls is another story.

Parking - find out how much it costs - 2014-02-11
Searches for Car parking Charges lead to a page "How to find Talkin Tarn" Very difficult to find costs of parking.

Parking fine - pay one - 2014-04-14
Informative and told the different methods to pay the fine i.e online, in person etc. The make a payment button is a bit small, but was still easy to find.

Planning permission - apply for it - 2014-07-10
Planning application was on the home page!

Pothole - report one - 2014-04-14
Easy to navigate and find form used to report a pothole.

School term dates - find them - 2014-04-14
Easy to follow, was first option which made it very straight forward.

Taxi driver - complain about one - 2014-04-14
Doesn't have specific contact detail on the webpage which would be useful.

Travellers - find information about them - 2014-04-14
Plenty of information available as a PDF although it is quite long but was still useful.

Tree preservation order - apply for one - 2014-06-17
The tree preservation order page doesn't tell you how to apply for a TPO, only how to apply for an exemption to carry out work on a protected tree. Also it refers to a "form below" which I couldn't find. I did find out (under trees - FAQs) that you can contact the council if you think a tree needs to be protected - that's the closest you get to applying for a TPO on this website.

Unitary Development Plan / Local Development Plan - find it - 2014-08-04
Lots of information to wade through, there is a local plan, a new local plan and a City Centre Development Framework all with lots of large documents.

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