Public Sector · Usability Research

Navigating Municipal Services:a resident portal people could actually use

Overview

Mixed-methods usability research and redesign of a city's "My Digital" resident portal — streamlining payments, parking, services, and support across mobile and desktop.

My role

UX Researcher & Product Designer — research, testing, UX & UI.

Methods

ModeratedUnmoderated

Client

City municipality

My Digital — resident portal

“My Digital” — the redesigned municipal resident portal.

The problem

A new digital portal — yet residents still picked up the phone.

“My Digital” was supposed to take load off the call center. It didn't. Residents would open it, hit a wall, and call anyway — so the real problem was never access to services. It was that the interface fought people at the exact moments they needed it.

Hard to navigate

Vague labels — a generic “Profile,” unclear sections — sent people hunting. Any task that spanned two screens lost them.

Impersonal & rigid

One identical home for every resident — nothing that reflected the handful of services a given person actually uses.

Disruptive integrations

Paying a fine bounced you to a separate site that re-asked for details you'd just entered — so people gave up.

The approach

How I tackled it

Mixed-methods research to learn where residents got stuck — and why they still reached for the phone.

Recruiting, personas & SWOT

Recruited representative residents, built personas, and ran a SWOT to frame the portal's real strengths and gaps.

PersonasSWOT

Usability testing

Moderated and unmoderated task-based testing on the prototype to watch where orientation and flow actually broke.

ModeratedUnmoderated

Journey mapping & workshops

Design-Thinking workshops plus a full customer-journey map (below) to turn findings into prioritized design directions.

Journey mapsWorkshops

I mapped the full resident journey across the portal's key areas — general impression, exiting to external sites, profile, and traffic & parking — to pinpoint exactly where a positive first impression turned into friction.

Customer journey map — positives and pain points across the portal

Customer journey map — positives, pain points, and resident quotes across each area of “My Digital.”

What residents told us

“Instead of calling it ‘Profile,’ I'd name it something more personal, like ‘Your Account.’”

“Switching between ‘My Digital’ and other sites is a hassle.”

“‘Profile’ feels too generic — less personal to me.”

“I expected more customization options.”

From quotes to patterns

I clustered the findings into three themes — and each theme became one of the three design directions.

Theme 01 · Identity

“It should feel like mine.”

Residents read the portal as the city's, not theirs — a generic “Profile,” no room to make it personal.

“‘Profile’ feels too generic.” · “I expected more customization.”

→ became Personalization

Theme 02 · Orientation

“Don't make me re-orient.”

Every screen change cost people their place, and labels named departments instead of tasks.

Observed across moderated sessions — repeated “wait, where am I?” moments.

→ became Navigation

Theme 03 · Continuity

“One place, not a relay.”

Hand-offs to outside sites broke flow and trust, and re-asked for details people had just given.

“Switching between ‘My Digital’ and other sites is a hassle.”

→ became Integration

The solution

Three fixes, where residents felt the friction

From the research → Identity

Personal, not one-size-fits-all

Residents kept telling me “Profile” felt cold and that they “expected more customization.” That reframed personalization from a nice-to-have into the trust fix. So the home became a dashboard people build themselves — pin the services you use, drop the rest, and choose how you're alerted (SMS, email, in-app).

Custom dashboardwidgets arranged around what you use

Configurable alertsby type and channel

The callKilled the generic “Profile.” The home became a dashboard residents build themselves.

From the research → Orientation

Navigation you can't get lost in

In testing, people lost their place the moment a task crossed two screens. So I anchored one navigation bar on every page, added links inside each section, and renamed features to the words residents used — not internal department names. “Where am I?” stopped coming up.

Persistent navvisible on every page

Plain labelslanguage residents actually use

The callOne nav on every page, and labels in residents' own words — not department names.

From the research → Continuity

One environment, start to finish

The sharpest drop-off was the hand-off to outside payment sites — new look, details re-typed, trust gone. So I kept those flows inside the app: same design, details carried over, a pop-up that never feels like leaving. Paying a citation is one task now, not three.

In-app pop-upsyou never feel you left

No re-entrydetails carry across

The callPayment stays inside the app — no bounce to an outside site, no re-typing details.

Interactive prototype

The redesign, in motion

A live walkthrough of the rebuilt portal — watch a resident skip the call center, pay a citation inside the app, and personalize their dashboard. It plays on its own; tap Interact to drive it yourself.

What the walkthrough shows

Personalization — a dashboard residents arrange themselves, plus an Edit-Favorites flow.
Navigation — a persistent nav and plain labels, so you never get lost.
Seamless integrations — paying a citation happens in-app, with no re-entry.

Plays on its own. Hover the device and tap Interact to drive it yourself.

Visual design

Approachable but still official — Manrope for clear hierarchy, one warm orange to carry the brand, and greens and reds that only ever mean one thing: done, or needs your attention.

The impact

What changed

Phone → self-serve

The core shift

Residents now have a reason to finish a task in the portal instead of reaching for the phone.

4 key flows

Redesigned

Payments, parking, services, and support — rebuilt around clarity and orientation.

Mobile + desktop

One consistent system

One language that holds together whether you're on the bus or at a desk.

Directional results from moderated and unmoderated usability sessions across mobile and desktop, segmented by age and device — a concept validated with residents, not production analytics.