City homepages often give every service equal weight. We redesigned the pattern around the few tasks most visitors come to do.
Local government2026A city government homepageHick’s law
Concept for
A city government homepage
Sector
Local government
Principle
Hick’s law
Year
2026
The problem
Most visits to a city website are for a handful of tasks: paying a utility bill, checking trash and recycling pickup, reporting a pothole, renewing a permit. Yet many city homepages set out 30 or more services side by side, all the same size, so every visitor has to scan them all to find their one.
The behavior behind it
Hick’s law. More choices, slower decisions.
What gets in the way
Every service has the same size and position, so nothing signals where to start
Seasonal tasks, like holiday changes to trash pickup, compete with pages few people need
Search is small and easy to miss, although many visitors arrive knowing exactly what they want
Before The common patternAfter Our concept
Our concept
A top-tasks homepage: a large search field, the five most-used tasks as big keys, and every other service one level down under "All services". The five tasks come from search and analytics data and are reviewed each season, so the homepage follows what residents actually need.
What we would expect
Faster routes to the right page for the most common visits
Fewer calls about tasks that can be done online
A homepage that adapts to seasonal demand instead of growing longer
Concept project. Our own design thinking, built from common patterns: not client work, and not based on any single organization.
Seeing this on your site?
We can look at your website the same way.
An audit tests your own site against all twelve principles, with real visitors and your analytics, and ranks every fix by impact.