Overview

 
 

DriveTest Ontario

DriveTest Ontario has 56 examination centres and 39 travel point centres across the province. Before 2020, they were administering 750,000 tests and 1.75 million counter transactions per year.


 

Duration: 3 weeks

Type: Responsive design for web & mobile

Members: Elvis Bayley, Hamza Mirza, Paulo Saromo

Role: Researcher, Information Architect and UX Designer, Web Designer

Methods: User Interviews, User Surveys, Competitive Analysis, User Flows, Wireframe, Usability Testing, Prototyping

Tools: Figma, Google Forms, Zoom and sticky notes

As a team we were tasked to tackle a real world business problem and develop a solution through UX design.

 

The Challenge

DriveTest Ontario's automobile licensing authority, is are facing a backlog of needed appointments in the hundreds of thousands. Plagued by poor UX design and long wait times, residents are frustrated with the inability to book a time slot.

Problem

  • An already stressed booking system is facing a surge of nearly 500,000 needed appointments.

  • Ontario residents expect 2+ year wait times based on official predictions.

  • DriveTest is looking to hire 200+ DriveTest employees to offset the demand, equating to roughly $10 million in salaries

 

Solutions

The booking procedure will be streamlined via a newly revamped website, and additional features such as wait lists and e check in will increase DriveTest's ability to complete appointments and reduce centre wait times.

 
 

 Design Objective

Re-designed the DriveTest website to streamline the booking process and add quality of life improvements to maximize their ability to fulfill appointments and reduce centre wait times.

 

Discovery

 

Licensing Process

    • Must be an Ontario resident

    • At least 16 years of age

    • Must take a multiple choice, 3part knowledge test created by the MTO

    • Takes about 20-30 minutes

    • Must have a G1 license for at least 12 months

    • If a driving school is attended, time may be reduced by 4 months

    • Known as a "city test" and takes about 20 minutes

    • Must have a G2 license for at least 12 months

    • City test with highway component

    • Once the G class is obtained, driver has reached the final class

 

Comparative Lead Time

Since each province has their own distinctive licensing system and authority, we wanted to take a look at how long the full licensing process takes in other provinces. The following shows Ontario's vs. Manitoba's lead time:

 

Ontario's expected
time frame to obtain a full class license

Ontario's actual
time frame to obtain a full class license

Manitoba's actual
time frame to obtain a full class license

 

Survey

An 8 part, 21 question survey was conducted with 58 participants; the purpose was to collect experiences from previous, current and future drivers who have used the DriveTest website. The following key findings were identified:

Word-of-Mouth
used to obtain information about the booking and licensing process.

Frustrated with Booking Participants agreed that the booking process could be improved.

Interface Improvements Participants agreed that the site’s interface

Contextual Inquires

Participants were instructed to navigate through Drivetest.ca and attempt to book their respective road test

Contextual Inquires

From the original 58 participant pool, 4 individuals who were current G1 or G2 class holders were selected to move forward to the next research step. Participants were instructed to navigate through Drivetest.ca and attempt to book their respective road test. The following key findings were identified:

  • Too much information on the home page; information overload.

  • Difficult to find relevant information about eligibility, process and fees.

  • No way to see appointment availability without entering personal information.

  • No way to search for centres by distance.

  • Accessibility issues (e.g. contrast, legibility)

  • Redundancy with going back and forth between locations and calendar pages if no appointment times available.

Card Sorting

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Humanizing the Research

 
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
— Quote Source
 

 Research Show - Participants Noted

 

 

The College Student Persona

Meet ….

Pain Points

 

Information Architecture

The Drive Test website has poor usability, caused by poor information architecture.

Content and landing pages are not laid out well; relevant information is difficult to find.

Click Stream

The back-and-forth between switching locations to find open appointment times creates redundancy in the flow.

Users must enter various steps of authentication and credentials before seeing available time slots.

Heuristics

The booking process does not match the mental model well, which results in poor affordance

The booking process is too limited and does not make itself clear to the user.

Problem Statement

Student drivers are eager to upgrade their licences but are left frustrated and disappointed by the strenuous process of finding

relevant information and securing road test appointments.

 Design

Original vs Redesign

 

New User Flow

 

 Iterations

 Card Sorting

 

User Feedback

 

 The Solution

 (Insert Prototype)

 Reflection

 

Next steps

Learnings