Website Structure Review 2022

Making it easier to find the information or services that users need

Consultation status Archived

Start date: 2022-05-17

End date: 2022-06-14

Results 2022-08-31

Category:

Ward:

Activity closed. Results published.

Background

An image of a woman sat with a laptop accompanied by the words 'Help us to make our website better for you'

We last reviewed our website in 2015, so it's time to look at what we have, and consider how we can make it better. Since June 2021, we have been undertaking a full review of its content and structure.

We're updating the way it looks, reorganising and re-writing the content section by section making sure it's up to date and easy to read, and have now reached the point where we need to consider the structure of the site.

We know that many users come straight to our website from Google (or other search engines), or use the search function on our website to go directly to the page they need. Whichever route they use, whether starting from the home page or any other page on our site, we need to make sure that our site is easy to navigate.

After looking into how our site is used, and undertaking a card sorting exercise with staff, we've come up with a proposed new structure for all of the topics on the website.

Why we want your views

We'd like to know whether this new structure makes sense to you, specifically whether you think we've chosen the right top level headings, and if the topics under these headings are as you'd expect, e.g. "Garden and Food Waste" is under "Rubbish and Recycling". This information will help us design the structure to make it easier and quicker for users to find what they're looking for.

We'd also like to further understand your user journey, i.e. how you move around our website, and how regularly you use it, to make sure our users have the best experience.

How to take part

If you'd like to comment on our proposed website structure, you can by midnight on 14 June 2022. It should take about 5 minutes.

If you have any questions about the consultation, or any general questions about our website, please contact the Digital Team at digital@westberks.gov.uk.

What happens next

Your feedback will be taken into consideration, and used alongside usage data and staff feedback, to help us shape the website. The new structure will be implemented by September 2022.

You can find out more about how users interact with the website on our website usage page. You can also read more about what the Digital Team get up to in our Blog.

What you told us

The survey responses gave us insight into how you use our website and some useful feedback on what you expect to see on it.
The majority of respondents were residents of West Berkshire, with a few members of West Berkshire Council staff and councillors also taking part.
The 66.24% of respondents agreed with the proposed new top-level headings, with just 12.74% disagreeing, and a further 21.02% neither agreeing nor disagreeing. 72% felt there were no headings missing.

For those that did feel the wording needed amending, many identified that there was a lack of climate change and environment content at the top level. Some were not sure what the heading 'Adult Social Care' meant or what it would cover. Some respondents also commented that it may be better to use ‘Council Tax’ rather than just the word ‘Tax’.

There were also lots of unique comments which did not form a theme, in which people shared their opinion on areas they felt may be clearer and other comments on the website as a whole.

What we did

This feedback helps us to understand how people use our website and which bits they have difficulty with. All of the comments have been read and will be considered further where they can help us make improvements to other areas of the site.

Based on the recurring feedback, we’ve made minor updates to the wording of some of the sections to make them clearer, however with almost two thirds of respondents agreeing with the proposed new top-level headings no major revisions will be made.

We’ve also reconsidered where to place our ‘Environment and Climate Change’ pages, so that they’re more visible from our home page.

We are planning to amend the structure during August, once we’ve finalised some changes to our content and let our staff who write the content alongside our Digital Service team become familiar with what’s changing.

Once the new structure is live, do please send us any more feedback using our 'How did we do' online form.