Health and Human Services (HHS) User-Centric Website Consolidation

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Cuyahoga County wanted to increase awareness of and access to the full range of health and human services available to the community. Prior to 2020, information was listed on 10 separate websites based on department or agency. As an end user looking for help, navigating these separate websites was confusing. In October of 2018, the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) kicked off the HHS User-Centric Website Consolidation Project. The goal of the project was to create a customer-centric approach for providing services to the public, delivering content to those in need in an intuitive, easy to read format that was ADA compliant. DoIT worked with the HHS agencies and partnered with American Eagle, Inc. to break down content siloes within departments, eliminate duplicative content, identify service areas and audiences, and make it easier for residents, clients, and community partners to access services and information based on need. DoIT practiced extreme empathy in user experience design, used qualitative methods such as interviews, analytics, testing and user panels to understand behaviors, thought processes and pain points. The resulting website provides options to search based on need (example: I need food, housing, etc.) or audience (example: I am a single mother, senior, etc.).