Salt Lake County’s Refreshed Human-Centered Website.

Utilizing a design-thinking approach to design a service-focused, unified, and accessible design system. With millions of users and nearly 80 departments, Salt Lake County’s website contained over 100,000 pages; each with unique layouts, systems, and even palettes. The troubled user experience relied on users’ knowing the county structure and departments instead of services or themes.

We initiated the project with a robust design-thinking phase to understand the needs of the users, the County, and the landscape. We gathered and analyzed thousands of user surveys, user video testing, user navigation testing, historic traffic, user flows, and conducted nearly 100 focus groups and interviews.

Based on this research, we developed a comprehensive strategic plan for the website, including a simplified navigation structure and a design system that was consistent, flexible, and accessible.

Niftic worked closely with the County to design templates, components, and a design language that maintained the County's brand trust and integrity, while also being adaptable to a wide range of content. We also ensured that our designs met the highest standards of accessibility.

To implement the new design system, we worked with each department individually to update their pages and optimize content, focusing on individual user needs. During the phased rollout and launch, we continued to collaborate with the County's development team on quality assurance and guideline creation. Through our design-thinking approach and close collaboration with the County, we were able to create a website that improved the user experience for both users and web-authors.