Using customer insights to inform continuous improvement on nsw.gov.au

In November 2021, the community of Content Management System (CMS) editors, who design and publish the pages on nsw.gov.au, came together to review the feedback received throughout 2021, to educate and inform the development of content in 2022. 

This year, with 10 agency and campaign website migrations completed, over 2000 pages have been created on nsw.gov.au. With this, our site saw millions of page views (342 million to be exact!). As part of our commitment to delivering a positive digital experience for our customers, it is important to understand what is working well, and which areas may need improvement. 
 

What did we find?

The insights gleaned from our customer feedback and usage trends, highlighted three key themes.

These key themes form the basic fundamentals for all work across the migration project.

1.    Content currency and accessibility

A good website should be updated regularly, with relevant, accessible and accurate content, written in plain English, and we consistently heard from our customers, that this was important to them. 

We understand customers look to nsw.gov.au to provide clear, critical information, particularly during times of need. As a result, we have reviewed how we can continue to write clearly for the web. This includes utilising improved accessibility features, the evaluation of the reading level of published content, and skills-based training for our editors.

We also know our customers come to the website looking for up to date information, to help them make informed decisions. 

To ensure the content on nsw.gov.au is current, we have reviewed our content lifecycle processes, and how we update, maintain and archive content using through regular content audits.
 

_{Regular content audits are important to ensure we deliver a positive customer experience.} 

2.    Content layout and linkages

There are hundreds of thousands of searches conducted each month on nsw.gov.au. Looking at how we structure our webpages through our Information Architecture (IA  ), and how we present large volumes of complex or detailed information, is critical to help people quickly locate the information they need. 

Overwhelmingly, we saw positive feedback from customers in terms of the layout of information and the ease of finding what they were looking for. When we heard of poor experiences, we were able to able to quickly utilise that information to address the concern at hand.

‘I was able to easily find what I needed after searching’

‘Well presented, clear and concise’

Our website contains internal links to other pages on nsw.gov.au, external links to other government websites, and downloadable media files. We know, and heard from customers, how frustrating it is if these links stop working. We have reviewed how we apply re-directions when we archive pages, and how to quickly identify and fix any broken links on the site. We also take advantage of various tools to help diagnose any issues before publishing content including, Siteimprove, Sajari and Google Analytics.  
 

_{Nsw.gov.au contains hundreds of internal, external and document links that need to be kept current.} 

3.    User Experience, layout and design

The  team who focuses on the User Experience (UX) and page design, shared with our CMS editors, ‘snapshots in time’ of the maturation of key pages across the website. They showed us how to better utilise functionality of the CMS to arrange content and take advantage of various layouts.  

We know the most important information must be prioritised and displayed toward the top of the page to quickly address customers’ needs. We also heard that a page’s purpose is as important as the colour of the button we place on the page, to signal to customers where to click, and easily locate the information they’re after.

Positive customer feedback included: ‘The page is well laid out and allowed me to add my contact details easily’, 

whilst areas for improvement included: ‘Too long, too complicated’.

Based on usage trends, we know most of our customers access nsw.gov.au on mobile (72%). Key to delivering a positive customer experience is to test new pages display correctly on both mobile devices as well as desktop. Read more about automated visual testing  on nsw.gov.au on a previous blog post.
 

_{With 72% of users on mobile, automated visual testing helps ensure a positive customer experience.} 

The key take- away?

Following the review, it has only reinforced the importance of regularly delving deeply into how people use our website, how they interact on our pages, and which layout/s help to deliver key information to our customers. 

“Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. It happens by design.” — Clare Muscutt, author and internationally renowned CX consultant. 

Equipped with the trends and insights we have gleaned from this past year we are more than ready to take on 2022.

Did you know, you can provide feedback on all pages on nsw.gov.au? Simply click on the ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ at the bottom of the page, to help us continuously improve the website.