Digital Services wraps up collaboration with Permitting & Development

For the last year, the Bureau of Technology Services (BTS) Digital Services team has worked to improve the user experience of the PP&D website so it's easier for the community to apply for permits. With this goal, we developed new web designs and tools to make permitting information easier to find, understand, and use.

More than 50 subject matter experts and project specialists in PP&D made meaningful contributions to this project over the last year. Besides their regular work of reviewing applications, inspecting construction, or supporting business applications, PP&D staff gave us the detailed information we needed to create project-specific guides and pages that meet our users' needs.

Their partnership was essential in helping craft a simple information experience that supports community members as they build their homes and expand their businesses.

But these new webpages and interactive project guides are only the foundation for what comes next. PP&D will continue to update and refine permitting pages and expand this work to more project types. When it comes to the information Portlanders need to apply for their permits, complexity is trending toward simplicity. Projects that need a permit are getting easier to complete, brick by brick.

We in Digital Services sincerely appreciate our collaboration with PP&D and with our user community, who helped us test out features and confirm changes we made along the way. We look forward to seeing this work evolve and continue to improve the user experience for the public we serve.

Here's a snapshot of what we accomplished together in this project:

• Findability - Can users find what they need?
  • Before: In our annual survey, only 10% of residents could find what they needed.
  • After early testing: 82% found and recalled the right steps for their project.
• Helpfulness - Do users think the site is helpful?
  • Before: In our annual survey, just 24% said the site was helpful.
  • After early testing: 64% could explain the correct next step.
• Reading level - What's the average grade level of the written content?
  • Before: 9.8
  • After: 6.4

Hear from users in recent testing sessions:

• "I love this. I have been lost many times in my previous applications."
• "This is simple, easier to understand, especially with the numbers, the steps. I like that. And that's what I was looking for before."
• "This [project guide] really cleans up the essential information, like this is what you actually need, as opposed to having to scroll through everything and read through everything."

For more details, read about how this project won a national award for innovation.

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Interested in collaborating with us? Whether you're a community member who wants to help us test our work, or a team at the City hoping to improve your service offering, you can reach us at digital.services@portlandoregon….