Identifying (& improving) top tasks

Michele Ide-Smith, Web Strategy Manager

Cambridgeshire County Council

September 2011

Help! Where do I begin?

You want to take a top task approachBut how do you get started?How do you find out what customers’ top

tasks are?And how do you make top tasks easy for

customers to find and use?

It’s an iterative process

Step 1 – Research & Analysis

Analyse existing data

Google Analytics for page views and search terms

Crazy Egg for heat maps of user clicksTransactions (eforms, payments)Calls and emails to the Contact CentreFace to face contact e.g. libraries,

receptions

Remember - Council staff are not customers!

So filter out Council traffic

This page was set as the home page on all PCs in Libraries

Look at search statistics for users’ search terms

Find out where customers click (using Crazy Egg or

Google Analytics)

Tracking customer journeys across multiple domains can

be tricky

Categorise and log customer contact consistently across

all contact channels

Contact Centre calls (April)

Contact Centre libraries stats

How do we map the data? No consistency between categories!

Web top tasks (April)

Categories are too broad

Step 2 – Define top tasks

Make a list!

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000

Apply for school admissions

Buy BMD certificates

Pay parking fine

Find realtime bus information

Find info on registry offices

Find info on ticket types

Plan a journey

Find info on parking tickets

Find school details

Find info on person centred approach

Contact us

Find school term dates

Find library opening times/details

Find info on bus routes

Find info on jobs

Find info on busway

Find info on park and ride

Find or renew library book

Find bus timetables

Unique Page Views and Search Terms

Top tasks

Update your list regularly!

August 2011 top tasks

Step 3 – Evaluate (existing)

Evaluating top tasks

Evaluate usability and effectiveness of the top tasks with your customers

Analyse customer comments / feedbackIf you use Google Analytics – set up

goals to track conversion ratesAlways collect baseline data so you can

compare before and after!

User Experience: Method CardsUser Experience: TechniquesAuthor: Matthew Godfrey

Published: 25/10/2010

Techniques Overview

Research

Design

Evaluation

AnalyticsAnalytics

Competitor AnalysisCompetitor Analysis Surveys/QuestionnairesSurveys/Questionnaires

PersonasPersonas

Task Analysis/FlowTask Analysis/Flow

SketchingSketching

WireframingWireframing

Mock-upsMock-ups

Paper prototypingPaper prototyping

HTML PrototypingHTML Prototyping

Card SortCard Sort

Expert ReviewExpert Review

Heuristic ReviewHeuristic Review Face-To-Face TestingFace-To-Face Testing

Remote testingRemote testing

User Flows/Journey MapUser Flows/Journey Map

Expert reviews by the team

Walkthrough example

Page level ratingsCustomer view CMS author view Web team view

We send reports with comment to CMS authors

Socitm take-up survey

“Seems that once the library computer system shuts down

after hours, then looking up the catalogue or renewing is only for

the brave & persistent!!”

“I still don't know when to apply for school for

my child.”

“I need to know if recycling centre takes microwaves - will ring”

"It would like to be able to search for bus information by

street name.  It is difficult to find which buses go to which roads, important to find out re how to

get to schools etc. "

Remote user testing

Remote testingRemote testing tells you there’s a problem, but not why there’s a problem

Moderated user testingModerated testing reveals why users are having problems

Step 4 - Improve

Our improvement plan

Change site template design to highlight top tasks and improve SEO

Create a seasonal top task calendarOptimise task flow for top tasksRevise site IA to focus on top tasksAudit and streamline web contentChange content governance

55 % of visits from search engines9% of visits include the home page

Our new home page?

Use landing pages which link to top tasks and use

terminology that matches users’ search terms

Improve and test task usability

Users struggled with the search by road number

The town/street drop downs are large and hard to navigate

Road number and name are now combined in an auto-suggest AJAX search

Remove unnecessary web content – it doesn’t help

customers

Content audits are useful

Step 5 - evaluate again!

Optimise task efficiency

Improvements to the Blue Badge application process: Decreased proportion of users starting an application

but failing to complete it, from 45% down to 26% Decreased average time on task from 6 to 4 minutes

Track channel usage

Pothole Reporting Requests - Jan/Feb 2011

0100200300400500600700800

Fixmystreet.co.uk Potholes.co.uk Fillthathole.org Direct fromcustomer email

Direct fromcustomer

telephone call

Highw aysReporting

Application w ithmap

Highw aysReporting

Accessible eForm

Where request came from

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Dec-11

Jan-11

Feb-11

What we’ve learnt

Data analysis and customer research is resource intensive, but essential

Devolved web publishing isn’t working – we’ve lost control of our content, which doesn’t help customers carry out top tasks

Some tasks are not within our immediate control (3rd party supplier systems)

Our Contact Centre call handlers need to access information to answer infrequent customer queries, without impacting top tasks

Our next steps

Audit content and authoring process Streamline content - quality not quantity Aim for centralised content publishing

Update site information architecture and navigationImprove search results (on site and in Google)Get better information from the Contact CentreDo low cost usability testing more oftenMeasure customer contact consistently across all

our channels

Some useful links

http://www.loop11.comhttp://www.crazyegg.comhttp://silverbackapp.com/http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/http://www.google.com/support/analytics/http://www.usability.gov

Recommended books

The Stranger’s Long Neck, Gerry McGovernRocket Surgery Made Easy, Steve KrugUndercover User Experience Design, Cennydd Bowles

and James BoxSearch Analytics For Your Site, Louis Rosenfeld

For more information

Michele Ide-Smith, Web Strategy Manager

Cambridgeshire County Council

Phone: 01223 699710

Twitter: @micheleidesmith

Email: michele.ide-smith@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

I sometimes blog about this stuff: http://www.ide-smith.co.uk