City of Bend: Permitting and Development Site Improvements
Community members were having trouble regarding permits and licenses.
Roles
Project Owner / UX Designer / Researcher / Content Manager
Team Size
3
Platform
Web
Tool Stack
Optimal Workshop / Google Analytics / Miro / Microsoft CoPilot / GovAccess
Background
There was a glaring reason the Bend community didn’t know how to obtain a required building permit or license through the City: neither the process nor requirements were outlined anywhere on the City’s site.
Presenting to Stakeholders
Now that we had a new sitemap outlined and a proof-of-concept for one critical path, we were ready to present to the department director and his division managers. I walked through group through the process I just outlined here and presented the proof-of-concept I had built out and they were THRILLED! I know I was excited to show them this brand new content, but I wasn’t sure how it would be received. The department director authorized his communications liaison to devote 70% of her job to working with my team to coordinate content reviews with the department’s subject matter experts. It was a huge endorsement for my team and the work we were just beginning on the site.
Rebuilding the Information Architecture
With the green light from the department director, I continued to build out the content for the new pages I had outlined. For the existing site content that we determined would stay, we returned to Miro to map out the content on each page using sticky notes. We then grouped the stickies and organized them in a more logical flow to align with identified user journeys.
Once the IA was cleaned up, we did a lot of cutting and pasting and leaned on Copilot to help rewrite the content at an 8th-grade reading level to make it more understandable for the majority of the community. We then shared the updated content, along with any questions, with the communications liaison for SME review and stakeholder approval. Once we got the approvals, we built the pages.
Results
The page updates were very well received. Although it took some time for our frontline customer service staff to get acquainted to the new, reorganized content, we have not received any complaints. Preliminary Google Analytics data suggests that the community is having an easier time locating the services and information they need. We intend to do follow-up user research to continue to refine the pages and address any new or lingering concerns.
View the work at bendoregon.gov.
Research & Roadblocks
As part of an early-stage website redesign effort, we enlisted the help of a research firm, Sitecrafting, and took a human-centered design approach to learn about how the Bend community used the website, the tasks they complete, and how the website could be improved. To accomplish this task, we employed the following research methods:
Stakeholder Workshops
Google Analytics
On-Site Feedback Collector
Community Survey
Top-Task Analysis
Tree Testing
“information is hard to find about how to submit land use applications & what is needed.”
Through this research, we learned that one of the major frustrations experienced by community members is confusion around how to apply for a permit and the submittal information needed when applying. Stakeholders stated that community members frequently call frontline staff with questions regarding how to get a permit, how long it takes to acquire permits, forms/paperwork required for an application, or they generally ask if they need a permit for their intended purposes.
When reviewing the community survey and on-site feedback collector responses, we saw similar responses. One community member said they were frustrated because “information is hard to find about how to submit land use applications & what is needed.” From these responses, accessing information regarding permits is frustrating for community members.
The on-site feedback collector also showed that community members had difficulty finding information regarding permits.
Roadblocks
As we prepared to tackle this piece of the website, we identified several roadblocks that had the potential to hamper our efforts:
Information Silos
The City of Bend is very siloed. Even though permitting and licensing is handled by one department, it is made up of several divisions, each in charge of a discrete piece of the permitting process. Nobody seemed to be consulting one another. This division was evident in the way content was structured on the site: individual pages devoted to each division and their specific work, and nowhere explaining how they all related to one another or fit into the larger permitting process.
Resistance to Change
Ahead of meeting with the department, we had been warned that there could be some level of resistance to change. Internal staff frequently used the site and knew where to find the information they were looking for, so there was some anxiety around having to learn to navigate new pages, or that the information they’re looking for would be deleted completely.
Technology Limitations
Some of the frustrations we heard from the community revolved around the permitting software the City utilized, which was out of scope for our project. Additionally, the content management system our site was built on was overly rigid and didn’t allow us the flexibility to do any major UI overhauls.
Time
Due to an aggressive deadline set by the City Council and senior leadership, some pieces of the project had to be shelved for a later date.
Implementation
In order to overcome the potential roadblock of resistance to change, we made a concerted effort to cultivate buy-in among the stakeholders and subject matter experts within the department. To do so, we maintained strong, open, two-way communication throughout the update process. We started the process with an introductory meeting with all stakeholders—the department director, division managers, and the content specialist within the department who was designated to facilitate content reviews with the subject matter experts as we moved through the project. We then had separate discovery sessions with each division to:
Get a better sense of what they do.
Hear directly from them what the most common questions they get from the community are.
Ask what they would like to see on the site.
Sitemapping
Ahead of our first meeting with the department, I built out the sitemap for the current state of the site in Miro.
I then did a quick audit of the pages to determine which should stay, which should be combined, and which should go. From there, I began to reorganize the pages that I determined should stay, and included new pages in the sitemap. After three iterations, I landed on a sitemap that my team and I felt more closely aligned with the expectations of the community.
This new sitemap included a LOT of brand new content. As such—and because the stakeholders were not familiar with sitemaps—I opted to build a proof-of-concept of one critical path I had envisioned.
Proof-of-Concept
What was completely missing from the site was an explanation of what the overall permitting process looked like. I believed that if we could just get this process outlined, we would eliminate much of the confusion and frustration that we had heard from the community.
The challenge was that because the divisions were so siloed and focused on their own piece of the process, nobody seemed to have a clear understanding of the overall process! 🤯 So I enlisted the help of AI.
The City Greenlights Microsoft Copilot
To build out the content for this proof-of-concept, I simply asked Microsoft Copilot to, “Outline the permitting process in Bend, Oregon.” Simple as that, we finally had our permitting process outlined. I then asked Copilot for some FAQs around permitting in Bend to include on the page. These actually tracked fairly closely with what we had heard in our user research! Armed with this new content, I built a working concept for a Property Owners Permitting Guide. Next, through the stakeholder meetings we had with each division, we learned what the most common projects were that required permits, so I built out a concept for a “project” page: Decks, Porches, and Patio Covers Permitting Guide.