Easily finding and understanding information is not only a main goal of UX in general, but was also the main goal in the project "Hallo SG" for the Department of Integration and Equality of the Canton of St.Gallen. How should an information portal look like that appeals to refugees from Africa as well as to the German academic? Based on extensive user research, an easy-to-understand integration portal was developed step by step.
Immigrants and their need for information are very diverse: What does the waste disposal in Switzerland look like? Where can I find a German course? What steps do I need to take that my foreign degree is officially recognized? From now on, answers to all these sorts of questions and much more will be available on one single web portal. This web portal not only supports immigrants directly, but also asssists the professionals who advise the immigrants in their day-to-day job. However, just stating the information on a website is is not enough. For a web portal to be efficient and usable, infomration must be easy to find, formulated in an understandable way and ideally available in several languages.
An indispensable prerequisite for a succesful website design is rigorous user research. Hence, we initiated a two-step approach to identify potential users' needs and wishes. In a first step, we analyzed the results of a quantitative survey indicating the general requirements of immigrants and professionals. In second step, based on the quantitative analyses, we conducted specific interviews with immigrants and context analyses with professionals in the integration offices. These quickly revealed what the new portal had to offer: Information in simple language, trustworthy and up-to-date information, intuitive user guidance and low-threshold contact offers.
The starting point for the concept work was a two-day concept sprint which we conducted in beautiful St.Gallen with the Department for Integration and Equality and Online Consulting, the project's IT partner.
Fig. 1: Lightning Talks are an efficient mean to share project-relevant insights within a concept sprint.
Fig. 2: During a concept-sprint, every participant actively contributes to the development of solutions.
The workshop results were translated into a Figma prototype and tested with users and integration experts. The low-fi prototype quickly grew into a high-fidelity design concept, which in turn was translated into an HTML prototype. The usability test of the HTML prototype showed: The new concept of the portal is well received, easy to use and offers relevant information in simple language.
Fig. 3: Interactive prototypes allowed to experience and test the new portal with real users.
Within half a year, we succeeded in designing an information portal for immigrants (hallo.sg.ch) that is fully oriented towards the needs of the users (professionals as well as immigrants). The integration portal not only offers a variety of information, but is also accessible to a very broad target group.
Hallo SG is a unique web portal that supports immigrants in quickly finding relevant information about the living in canton St. Gallen, accelerating the integration into the foreign culture. By actively involving the target group from an early stage, this project had the positive side effect of promoting the portal already before its actual launch.
Fig. 4: The integration portal is ready for implementation.
