User interface improvements

[loleg]

During the DINAcon event in Bern last week, we heard a very good presentation from the team and had a chance to talk to you and learn about your progress with eBau. First of all, thank you very much for supporting the conference. Today as part of the post-event HACKnight, we logged in through the Canton of Bern, tried your product, and even got some first-hand insights from a regular user (an energy consultant who puts in regular solar power applications).

Here are some areas of improvement / questions that immediately came out:

(1) It is not clear what is "required" and what is "obligatory". There are many screens, many options, many documents to upload, and it looks very intimidating. An experienced user knows that only part of the information is needed, and if you click on the ℹ️ icons, you can get helpful tips, however this is not yet very intuitive.

For example, having a wizard flow which starts with the highest priority forms and questions and documents, leads you through multiple stages of an application, and gives you a time estimate for completing the rest of the submission, would be helpful. You might also think about having a chatbot or other interfaces linked to knowledge bases.

Because this is an inter-cantonal project, linked to municipal concerns and federal laws, it would be very good to highlight those parts of the application which are mandated by what level. It's quite nice / ambitious that the eBau project unifies the process, however it would be good to make more clear who is responsible for what, also because of opportunities for reducing frictions in the future.

(2) The selection of parcels is not very standard from a UX perspective, and a user needs sometimes 10-20 minutes to understand it. This is unfortunate, because it is one of the most attractive features of the application. Please think about reducing the number of clicks to select a parcel, perhaps switching to a different map component, or even a dedicated interface in a modal dialog or popup (again as the wizard thought above).

Specifically we are referring to this (the +/- button):

(3) The information is fetched through GWR is not reflected in our tests in the form below. Users are confused as to whether it is not available, and they need to fill it out by hand, or if it is a technical problem, and they can leave the fields blank?

(4) This is ostensibly a minor point, but adding mobile support would be excellent - at least to be able to check the status and details of a Dossier on the road. It doesn't however seem like there is any Responsive Web support, for example the navigation menu is too wide and some key UI elements are off screen.

(5) Just to reiterate: we are trying to give you some helpful feedback from a "civic tech" perspective, not to criticise the team or the project. Would be happy to hear if there are any other formats or venues which would be more convenient for you to have some exchange.

[czosel]

Hi @loleg, thank you for making inosca/ebau a part of the HackNight and taking the time for this detailed write-up! 💯 We'd be interested to discuss your findings in a little more detail, preferably in a short meeting (online or offline). If you'd be up for that, please drop me a line at christian@zosel.ch.