Indy Vitals Usability Evaluation
Client: The Polis Center
Evaluated a public data platform for The Polis Center to identify usability issues in navigation and data comprehension. Delivered actionable design recommendations to improve accessibility, comparison tools, and overall user experience.
Project Duration
8 Weeks
My Role
UX Researcher
Team Size
5
Skills
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User Interviews
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Usability Testing
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Quantitative Data Analysis
What is Indy Vitals?
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IndyVitals is a tool that measures the health and sustainability and provides detailed data about neighborhoods areas in Marion county, Indiana.
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It tracks changes, highlights strengths and challenges, and allows nonprofits, policymakers, and residents to make informed decisions.
What are the evident issues.....
A heuristic evaluation based on Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics was conducted to identify critical usability challenges within the system. This approach highlighted several key areas where improvements are needed to enhance the user experience.
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Consistency and Standards
The minus (-) button appears as if it should collapse sections but performs no action, creating confusion and breaking user expectations.
Consistency and standards
The plus button(+) appears as if it will add something but instead open into a graphical representation of the data
Visibility of System Status
The 'Topic' dropdown overlaps with text, making it difficult for users to access the dropdown content.
Consistency and standards
The current headings use dense and unclear formatting.
There is a lack of alignment between headings and data representation.
Match Between System and the Real World
Users intuitively associate green upward triangles with improvement or red downward triangles with worsening performance without explicit guidance.
Who are the participants for the study.....
A total of 7 participants were recruited for the study.
Challenges in Recruitment: Due to confidentiality constraints surrounding policymakers and community leaders, we were unable to directly access many of our primary users, leading us to recruit a mix of primary and secondary users instead.
Users of the Indy Vitals website
They had worked on the development of Indy Vitals
Novice users who had minimal or no previous experience
Here's what our survey data says......
Accessing neighnorhood specific data
Accessing and printing maps
Comparing neighborhood
Exploring Socioeconomic trends
Education related information
Track neighborhood progress
Primary reason for using Indy Vitals
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Depth and detail of neighborhood-level data.
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Comprehensive insights provided without requiring extensive user input.
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The ability to compare neighborhood data is highly useful, especially for individuals considering a move to a new area.
Likes
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Lack of side-by-side comparison capabilities for multiple neighborhoods.
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Confusion with visualizations when comparing data across areas
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Outdated data and the steep learning curve for new users.
Dislikes
Despite being the most useful feature, the effectiveness of accessing neighborhood data and comparision of this data is limited according to our users
Not Effective
Somewhat Effective
Effective
The solution....
BEFORE
BEFORE
The data interpretation guide is in a seperate page and becomes difficult to recall
REDESIGN
Simple and clear legends for quick data interpretation
REDESIGNED SCREEN
REDESIGN
Clean data visualization with clear indicators familiar to users mental model
Complex data visaulization with confusing arrow direction and colours
REDESIGN
Along with the neighbourhood-specific data, users can compare domain specific data of various neighnourhoods
BEFORE
Users can only view neighborhood specific data but not domain specific
