California Department of Motor Vehicles

Government agencies have traditionally struggled with creating uncomplicated, easy to use websites with seamless user flows. This challenge arises due to the vast amount of information and bureaucratic jargon that characterizes most government transactions. However, by adopting a user-centric approach and implementing well-designed information architecture and labeling systems, we can vastly improve the way this information is presented. Collaborating with my UX/UI partner, our goal was to undertake a complete redesign of the DMV website, making it both effective and simple to use.

Poorly organized site structure makes it difficult to find what you are looking for on the DMV website. The lack of visual hierarchy and the massive amount of links creates an unpleasant user experience.

The current CA DMV website leaves a lot to be desired. Going through the typical user path, it is easy to see why people came away with a bad impression. It took too many steps to do a task and each page has too many links. There is no visual hierarchy or imagery at all.

We conducted 5 user interviews and we found several similar complaints with multiple users, expressing confusion over the website and frustration with the unclear terminology.

We wanted to make the redesigned navigation as uncomplicated to use as possible so we focused on the current navigation during our user tests to get a sense of the existing issues.

The main issues we found with the DMV website was that it was generally unclear and difficult to use. This included not being able to log in, being redirected to unexpected pages, and having primary flows buried inside a mountain of links.

The common pain points with the navigation were not knowing how to navigate to where they wanted to go, website redirects that made the user feel like they were repeatedly doing the same tasks, and text links that took too much time to read and understand.

With all of our usability data, we annotated the DMV website to mark where users encountered problems and the potential solutions and improvements.

To define the new site structure, we had to reorganize everything from the bottom up. We began by breaking down the pieces of the website and reorganizing it in a more user-friendly way.

In our redesign, we decided to simplify the top navigation and the footer to make accessing the site easier. We also relabeled categories with clearer titles and grouped like topics together so that the layout was better organized and centered around user needs.

Separating the main service menu options of the DMV from the login and search links helped direct users to the features that we wanted to emphasize on the website. However, we found that users were confused as to why the menu and submenu were shown as two visually distinct components.

We found that our testers did not utilize the website’s accessibility links we put in the footer at all and instead prefer to rely on their own individual browser’s accessibility options.

Through a more refined navigation, better categorized links, and a new brand voice that is modern yet professional, we feel that the new California DMV better reflects the state and the residents that it serves.

Results that we would have like to have seen is the rate of task completion from the new redesign site versus the original site. By seeing that the drop-off rate has decreased, we can show that the redesign was successful in its goal.