Task 4: Make your website’s information easier to find

Reused by Catalyst Resources with permission from SCVO.

<aside> 💪🏼 Difficulty level: easy

Estimated time to complete: 60 mins

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<aside> 👋🏽 This task will help you discover what information your users struggle to find on your website, and make it easier for them to find it. When you’ve done this task you will:

Have made it quicker and easier for your users to find what they need, reducing their stress and cognitive load
Be confident that you have a better organised information on your website </aside>

<aside> 💁🏾‍♀️ Tip: add this page to your web browser’s bookmarks. That way you can easily find it again.

</aside>

Background

Quick and easy access to information is more important to your users than anything else on your website.

It doesn’t matter how snazzy your website is or how many features it has or even how it looks. What matters is clear, unambiguous navigation and page content.

But what you think is clear may not be what your users experience as clear.

And the information you think they want may not match what they actually want.

It’s not hard to find out and then improve your website’s navigation and page content. You’ve already improved some of the content in Task 2.

Step 1

Think about what the people you serve most often ask for information about. Ask your colleagues about your organisation’s most common phone and email enquiries. Look at your site’s most common search queries, if you can.

List all of these. Some of them will be information that your users struggle to find on your website. Choose up to 3 pieces of information that could fit this category.

Step 2

Look at your website’s homepage and see how it is to find each piece of information by starting there. Ask yourself:

What do your users have to click to get to the right page?
When they get there how is the information laid out on the page?

Note down your thoughts. Remember if you can’t find it easily and quickly then your users won’t be able to either.

Step 3

Make each page that addresses people’s information needs easier to find.