City of Melbourne

Objecting to my parking fine

Reducing objections with no grounds

• Background

• Research - an experiment

• Findings

• Recommendations

Problem statement
The City of Melbourne (CoM) receives 35,000 parking infringement objections every year, with 18,000 coming through their online form. Around 60% of objections lack legal grounds for withdrawal. Customers understanding the reason for the infringement and CoM’s inability to withdraw will reduce groundless formal objections.

Objectives
We aim to reduce formal objections for parking infringements by enhancing the online experience. Our goals are to help users understand the reason for their infringement, the grounds for withdrawal, facilitate easy payment, and support effective review of objections.

What would success look like?
To proceed with design and implementation, we seek a SUS score above 68 and qualitative feedback indicating that 60% of users agree that the experience fulfils its objectives.

Who did we test with?
We tested with 8 people who had who objected to their fine online within the last 3 months and had completed the entire process.

What did the experiment look like?
In collaboration with the council team, we created a paper prototype to test with participants. The prototype simulated an online form flow, presenting relevant information at each stage of the journey. Users were given the option to either continue their request or proceed with payment.

We conducted the paper prototype test with 8 customers. They were given a scenario similar to their actual fine and asked to navigate through the prototype without guidance.  

What did we find out?
Participants responded positively to the provided information and appreciated having more details available. The majority understood the reason for their fine and chose to pay rather than object. Two participants still decided to proceed with an objection despite understanding the information. All participants provided valuable feedback on content and its sequence.

The average SUS score from 6 participants was 85, exceeding the average of 68. Based on the positive outcomes and high score, we decided to invest further resource to include supporting information, to help customers educate themselves and provide the necessary details for a review of their infringement.
 

What did we do next?
In collaboration with stakeholders, we refined the content, aiming for brevity of guiding information. While more supporting content was added than initially recommended, we had to consider the input from the CoM team and SME’s. We agreed on an MVP draft for the first iteration of build.

What have we learnt so far?
Through customer engagement and interviews, we found that customers now have a better understanding of the online process and gave positive feedback on the overall experience. They feel more informed about what they need to do and what documentation is required, resulting in increased comfort with the process. The inclusion of additional guidance during the online request process was well received by customers.
 

Recommendations for improvement

• Reducing the amount of content and making it more concise and focused. Removing some sections related to legislation interpretation can make the process easier to understand and faster.

• Retrospective attachments: Assess customer comfort levels with submitting requests while awaiting pending evidence. Address concerns about potential delays in receiving necessary documentation from third parties, which can extend beyond the objection deadline.

• Improve UI presentation and interaction design when identifying reason for review - explore search function to filter reasons from longer list.

• Ensure tracking is implemented to provide insight into form path flow performance.