Test results for Croydon 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.
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| Totals | Navigation | A-Z | Site search | Readability | Score | Tests | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total scores | 113 | 0 | 102 | 108 | 99 | 422 | ||
| Number of tests | 25 | 0 | 18 | 21 | 19 | 83 | ||
| Usability Index (total score ÷ number of tests) | 5 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
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
Broken street lights - report - 2024-10-10
It was easy to get to the form, but then the form itself was hostile.
Bulky waste or other special waste collection - book - 2024-10-10
Clicking on Bins at the top of the home page, I needed to double-back up the navigation tree because the link to me to a specific page about ordinary bins and what goes in them. Further, then navigating through to get to the actual bulky waste order form involved more clicks than necessary.
Council meeting - read the last full council minutes - 2024-10-10
Genuinely surprised at ending up giving up on this one
Council tax / housing benefit - apply - 2024-10-10
It was very easy at the beginning of the journey on the council website, but quickly became difficult on being taken to the NEC portal to actually do the application.
Cycling strategy - find it - 2024-10-10
Navigation was reasonably easy predicated on somebody who is looking for it would know what route to take, search results took me straight to it. Unfortunately the document itself was a .pdf which was an assault on my eyes.
Death - register one - 2024-10-10
Easy to find the form to make an appointment but then the form itself was a bit shuddersom.
Elections - find out when the next ones are - 2024-10-10
No information about the next election on the site
Freedom of Information Act request - make one - 2024-10-10
I *think* what I eventually got to, 'make a disclosure request' was where I needed to get to? Which ended up being a .pdf document which I had to download and then presumably print out, write on in a pen, scan, and then email back. It felt like they actively don't want FOI requests.
Local history - find out about - 2024-10-10
The Archives and Local History Collections page says you need to make an appointment to visit the collection. In 2024 I would have liked to have been given an appointment booking form rather than being expected to email. Also, whilst in 2024 I would not necessarily expect a council website to have a rich collection of information about local history, I would at least expect a one-pager, and I would expect a page about the collection to contain a bit more of a flavour of what the collection contains than is there on the page.
Noise nuisance - complain about it - 2024-10-10
Whilst it was very easy to find the form, a user might not necessarily know the postcode of the location of the noise nuisance they want to report if they're reporting something by other than their neighbours
Open Data - find some - 2024-10-10
The Croydon Observatory appears like it's supposed to be the council's open data portal, but I could only find ONS demographic information on it. Search could only find links to payments over £500 from several years ago.
Petitions - create one - 2024-10-10
There is no facility to create a petition on the site, and it tells you to email the results of your petition to an email address, with no real explanation of the process.
Population and census information - find it - 2024-10-10
Google search suggested the Croydon Observatory site. I know that an 'observatory' is the name for this kind of thing, does everybody looking for demographic information know this?
Pothole - report one - 2024-10-10
After many clicks it took me to a page talking about account services with no further reference to reporting a pothole
Read the council's greenhouse gas emissions report for the previous year - 2024-10-10
After clicking around it sent me to a generic .gov.uk page.
Taxi licence - apply for one - 2024-10-10
Took me some looking to see I was being signposted to TfL
Vulnerable child - express concern about one - 2024-10-10
It's very easy to find on the tome page the link to the section of the site, but from there on it looks like quite a dense form written in council language.
Youth clubs in the area - find information - 2024-10-10
Navigating to the relevant page from the home page felt like navigating through a set of council service pages rather than navigating through a set of pages for young people. Search results went to a directory about youth support rather than having fun.
ASBO Magazine?? Really????