DurhamRegion

A civic UX/UI redesign for myDurham 311, focused on service discovery, payment paths, responsive behavior, and resident-first navigation.

Redesigned myDurham 311 homepage with primary action cards.
Role

UX / UI Designer

Service architecture, responsive interface direction, navigation, and civic page systems.

Focus

311 services

Help residents submit requests, find alerts, make payments, and track service status faster.

Principle

Findability first

Make the most common municipal tasks visible before users need to search.

Year

2024 – 2025

Aug 2024 to Mar 2025 with the Region of Durham municipal team.

Duration

8 months

Eight-month redesign covering homepage, request entry points, payment paths, mobile behaviour, and reusable UI patterns.

Project arc8 months
Mission

Turn a civic portal into a more direct service gateway.

Durham residents needed a more direct way to reach high-demand services without parsing a heavy government website.

My contribution

I reorganized priority actions around resident intent.

The work focused on homepage hierarchy, service request entry points, payment paths, mobile behavior, and reusable UI patterns.

74–82%Task success rate
600K+Residents served
AA · 92–96Accessibility score
18–32Completion-time observations

A more direct way into civic services.

The redesign shifted the page from a search-heavy municipal landing page into a resident task hub with three obvious starting points.

Move the cursor across the homepage to compare the search-heavy original with the task-led redesign.

Navigation mapped around resident intent.

The sitemap clarified how broad civic categories could connect to high-demand request paths without making users understand internal departments first.

Durham Region sitemap showing home navigation into service request categories.
Task mapService requests connect to concrete resident needs.

High-frequency categories like transit, water, garbage, and regional inquiries sit behind a task-led service request model.

01

Put resident tasks before organization structure.

Residents arrive with jobs to finish, not a department chart. The entry points lead with submit, track, and pay before the site asks users to choose a civic category.

02

Use accessible contrast and large, readable action targets.

Large targets and high-contrast states make the interface usable in rushed, mobile, or low-vision contexts.

03

Keep service status, alerts, and payment paths easy to recover.

Requests, payments, and alerts are recoverable from multiple moments, so users can return to the task instead of restarting.

04

Make responsive behavior feel like the same civic product, not a separate mobile site.

The same service model carries from desktop to mobile, preserving labels, priority actions, and content order across breakpoints.

Core paths became easier to scan.

The page system treats requests, tracking, and payment as sibling journeys, each with a direct entry point and supporting explanation.

Durham Region service request homepage with social alerts and service request cards.
01 / Service discoveryService cards bring common tasks forward.

Residents can scan alerts, requests, and topic cards before committing to search or a deeper navigation path.

Durham Region track service request screen with explanation steps and request list.
02 / Request trackingTracking becomes a guided status flow.

The track-request screen explains the service lifecycle and keeps reference search close to the result area.

Durham Region payment options page with payment categories.
03 / PaymentsPayment options are grouped by task, not department.

Water, tickets, permits, and waste payments are presented as direct choices with scannable descriptions.

Same civic product, smaller canvas.

Mobile and compact desktop states preserved the same service hierarchy, reducing the chance that residents would lose their place between devices.

Durham Region responsive home screen design.
HomeResponsive behavior keeps the service model intact.
Durham Region responsive service request screen.
RequestsResponsive behavior keeps the service model intact.
Durham Region responsive learn and help screen.
HelpResponsive behavior keeps the service model intact.
Design system

UI parts were treated as civic infrastructure.

Buttons, nav states, footer patterns, and service modules were organized so the portal could scale without each new page becoming a custom layout problem.

Durham Region design system board with buttons, navigation, footer, and color frames.
Outcome

A public service experience that feels easier to trust.

The Durham Region work brings hierarchy, accessibility, responsive consistency, and task-first navigation into one more usable 311 experience.