When you make a new website, it’s important to get feedback on it to make sure it works for people. Getting feedback on your website should be part of your government customer service strategy.
If you don’t have the time or budget to do extensive user research, here are 3 easy ways to get feedback on your website.
1. Review website analytics
Your site analytics will help you understand people’s behavior. You can find things like:
- What are your most popular pages
- How people end up on a page
- How long people spend on a page
- Search terms people use
As you explore your analytics, it’s important to ask if what you learn is surprising or if it’s what you expect. This will help you identify areas where you need to make changes.
If a page is not performing as well as you think it should, here are some simple things to check for:
- Page title is descriptive and written in plain language
- Introductory text clearly explains what the page is about
- If there is an action you want people to take (like clicking another link or filling out a form), make sure it’s easy and clear
- Add a helpful meta description and keyword phrase (this is not visible to people visiting the page)
2. Provide a simple feedback survey
A simple, on-page survey can help you get feedback about a specific page. You can do this with a single prompt, like:
- Did you find what you’re looking for?
- Is this page useful?
- Report a problem with this page
Follow-up questions can include things like:
- What were you doing?
- What went wrong?
This is an easy way for people to give you valuable feedback on what’s working well and what pages need attention. More people are likely to engage with a simple survey than a general feedback form and the information you get will usually be more actionable.
3. Talk to people
Asking people about their experiences can be done easily and informally, without a user research budget. People who regularly interact with the public can do this by asking questions during their interactions with them. This can become part of your government customer service strategy.
Ask questions like:
- Did you have trouble finding this information on the website?
- What words did you use to search for it?
- What information was missing that you expected to find?
- Was the information hard to understand?
Remember that a single person’s experience is not always representative of others. It’s important to use this information in the context of other data.
Final thoughts
Feedback from real people using your website will help you focus your efforts to make the site better. This can be done with existing resources and without a lot of effort.
A website is never perfect when it launches. Even if it’s great, it won’t stay great if you don’t continuously improve it.
Discuss feedback with your team and share updates regularly. Make getting feedback part of your local government customer service strategy and bake this into your regular operations.
Get in touch
Schedule a free consultation to learn how we can help you improve your website.