City of Vaughan introduced electronic parking permits to its residents back in 2018. It was a new way to obtain a permit. The system has not been updated since and at that time accessibility and heuristics standards were not taken into account. The process of obtaining a parking permit needs to be simple and user friendly.
Accessibility
The user portal needs to incorporate Accessibility standards to ensure its providing a seamless experience to a wide range of users.
Simplify & Consistency
The process of obtaining a permit needs to be as simple as possible with removing the cognitive overload and present information consistency across the platform so the users are able to relate to it in the real world.
User-friendly
Create an improved experience for the user so they are able to consume the application error-free and enjoy the interaction.
A simple Heuristic Evaluation highlights all the issue that could be improved to provide users a better interactivity with the online portal. The objective in this exercise was to outline and determine the scope of the project.
The placement of action buttons before the Parking Regulations can be easily missed by the user.
There are many issues here to cover.
The best practice is to follow a single column form design for effectiveness. It reduces the cognitive load for the user to complete the task and reduces the path to completion so the eyes don’t travel across the page.
And include a Progress bar which lets the user know where they are in the registration step.
The user can be easily lost with the navigation menu. It does not tell the user where they are on the portal.
Worst yet, both Home screen and Buy Permits screen show the same view.
There was no clear messaging for users to understand why a user’s Proof of address was rejected in the first place.
