2 months ago
For mobile home owners, it’s all in a name
January 21, 2016
By Matthew Erlich
When Craig Sedlacek saw that he was getting more than 800 telephone calls a month on issues related to mobile homes, he knew there was a problem.
The solution: Make it easier for people to do business with us online.
Craig works at L&I as a supervisor for what the agency calls Factory Assembled Structures (FAS). His work involves reviewing plans and inspecting mobile homes, modular buildings and food trucks, among other vehicles. A modular building can include everything from portable classrooms to medical clinics, and FAS reviews the plans prior to permit approval. Plans for food trucks face the same process. When people want to make changes to a mobile home, some of that work requires a permit and inspection as well.
Building a better website
First, the project team conducted a usability study of the FAS website to better understand how customers expect to find information, what terminology they use and what difficulties they experienced with the current site. Then they used this real-world data, along with months of review, rewriting, and testing, to create a
new website at www.Lni.wa.gov/FAS. Here are a few of the major changes:
• The site is now called, “Manufactured Homes & Other Mobile Structures,” making it already easier for people to find what they need from the agency.
• The information is now sectioned for different users, from mobile home owners, to real estate agents, installers, and food truck owners. There is even a section for county and city building officials, who often have questions about the structures.
• Buying a permit was made into a step-by-step process that makes clear what people need to do — and provides an ability to pay online.
Proof of success
Craig, who has been with the agency for more than a decade, said the key moment came when the old and new sites underwent customer testing.
Under the old website, customers struggled to accomplish the tasks in the test. With the new site, all the customers tested were able to do the tasks. Now people are finding the answers they need and, if they have more questions, they can still give Craig a call.
More improvements
This project is just one of many here at L&I. We’re continuing to make these kinds of improvements to other web pages, online services, forms, documents and letters.
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