Johnson County

​​Johnson County knew their website users shouldn’t need to know which government entity provides the service or information they need, but their large organization wasn’t aligned on how to correct it. They partnered with I.F. to steer their team to a consensus on how to build an engaging, intuitive, and successful website. 

Better access to important information 

Our Voice of Citizen® research confirmed that residents were their largest user group, but only 55% of them could complete their purpose of visit. Meanwhile, employees—which counted for only 4% of visitors—had a 72% user success rate. Proving that the majority of their visitors were at a disadvantage due to a lack of institutional knowledge, and digging into what each user group was actually looking for, helped us align over 60 departments and divisions on a user-centered information architecture and the creation of a user interface that would make it easier to access high-priority taxes like renewing vehicle registrations and paying wastewater bills.  

We also helped the County organize and revitalize huge amounts of content (over 5,000 pages and 7,000 PDFs). By performing this work early in the project, we could test the success real-world content within their clean, simplified navigation. As part of our content-forward process, we also helped them untangle their complex workflow. With three user roles and simplified governance, their centralized web team can keep control of the site while empowering departments to maintain their own content, getting rid of the backlogs that were piling up on their old site.

Success factors

• Intuitive navigation and easy-to-find content
• One entry point for paying all county bills or fees
• Improved search experience also has the ability to find content on other county-related websites like Library and Parks and Recreation
• Responsive design
• Redundant hosting to increase website availability for all users

Innovation in action: Service-first

We built sequential drop-down menus on the website’s home page that allow residents to easily find and select vital tasks using plain language requests. This tool builds trust by illustrating Johnson County’s understanding of users’ greatest needs and giving them easy links for success. It also provides one entry point for paying all county bills or fees, with notable success: prior to the new site launch, online payments averaged 2,366/month. So far in 2022, they are receiving an average of 19,350/month.