using data-driven content audits to understand if your content meets user needs

@lily_dart lilydart.com

Lily Dart

Freelance user experience & research

Data driven content audits

Good content, like a good user interface, is invisible to most users

User needs driven content can have a transformative impact

You can’t understand impact, without first-hand experience

It’s difficult to overcome subjective experience

To counter to subjective experience, we need objective data

Data-driven content audits allow us to stop talking and start proving

Identifying problems with information architecture

Method

Card sorting can help us to understand how our users approach content

During a card sort we ask users to group and label topic cards

The ‘mental model’ users engage when thinking about topics

Where users might naturally expect to find content in an information architecture

Which topics might cause confusion, or sit outside of a standard information architecture

Card sorts can be open or closed, moderated or unmoderated

Select a maximum of 30 topics so that participants aren’t overwhelmed

Use website analytics and search logs to inform what the popular important content is

Speak to experts or stakeholders to discuss any additional important topics

Think topic, not page

Test with your target audience, not with staff or stakeholders

Online tools (such as OptimalSort) often have built-in recruitment tools

Avoid targeting current users of the site, as they may have learnt your current IA

Recruit in person, using online tools, or through related organisations

Card sorting can help you to:

Understand how users naturally group content

Identify topics that cause confusion

Identify issues in current information architecture

Identifying problems with content comprehension

Method

Readability scoring tools help us to assess language complexity

They are formulas which assess sentence length, syllables per word and passive sentences

Establish a baseline standard for content readability

Establish how consistently this standard is applied across content

Judge whether our target audience will be able to easily absorb the subject matter

Half of the UK working population have a reading age of 11-years-old or younger.”

“Office of National Statistics

Half of the UK working population have a reading age of 11-years-old or younger.”

“Office of National Statistics

readability-score.com

Wikipedia

Using these formulas will help you quickly estimate how difficult your text is [to read]. It’s a clear metric that can help you advocate for plain language.”

“Christine Cawthorne and Emileigh Barnes

Like every formula, [readability scoring tools] miss the magic and unpredictable nature of human interaction.”

“Christine Cawthorne and Emileigh Barnes

Scoring tools are not a replacement for testing content with real users

Many variables can affect content legibility including design and typesetting

Scoring tools do not account for incorrect usage; e.g. ‘waived’ versus ‘waved’

Scoring tools require some human interpretation with specialist subject matter

Research into use of specialist legal language in legal documents found: 80% of people preferred sentences written in clear English […] People understand complex specialist language, but don’t want to read it if there’s an alternative.”

Government Digital Service

Reading age can be estimated through audience demographics

Readability scoring tools can help you to:

Establish a baseline content standard to measure

Establish the consistency of content structure

Estimate users content comprehension

Identifying missing content and language issues

Method

Internal search logs are a rich, often untapped, source of insights about user behaviour and needs

Search log analysis reveals the value of “search returned no results”

Search logs can help us to identify content missing from our site that users want or expect

They can reveal when we’re using different language than our users

They can give us an indication of how easy our popular content is to find

Top search queries Rummy Go fish You’re it Chess

Blackjack Solitaire Poker Patience Uno

Monopoly

Trivial pursuit Drafts Your it Cluedo

Twister Pontoon It Cricket Cludo

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Top search queries which don’t return results

Rummy Go fish You’re it Chess

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

1. User language doesn’t align with site content

Monopoly

Dodgeball

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

2. Content that users are searching for does not exist on the site

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Top search queries which don’t return the correct result

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

3. Misspelling means some users can’t find pages they are looking for

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

4. Popular content is not appropriately prioritised in search results

Monopoly

Dodgeball

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Search query analysis results

User language doesn’t align with site content

Content that users are searching for does not exist on the site

Misspelling means some users can’t find pages they are looking for

Popular content is not appropriately prioritised in search results

Consider the timeframe for analysis; do external factors affect your traffic and search terms?

Consider the size of your user base when deciding on depth of analysis

Consider the amount of people searching for a particular term to prioritise issues

Search log analysis can help you to:

Identify missing or difficult to find content

Identify non-user friendly language

Reveal common misspellings

Card sorting resultsAnalysis

Original information architecture

Rummy Blackjack Go fish Poker

Patience Uno

1 2 3 4 5

Card games

Monopoly Trivial pursuit Snakes & ladders Chess

Drafts Cluedo

7 8 9 10 11

Board games

Twister Football You’re it Tennis Dodgeball

Red rover

14 15 16 17 18

Physical games

Information architecture

Content discoverability and user-friendly language

Missing content

Consistency of style

Potential content comprehension

Missing content

Audit findings should present what’s working as well as what’s broken

Using data driven audit methods turns opinion into objective analysis

Use data to stop talking and start proving

Lily Dart

Freelance user experience & research

Any questions?

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