COI has recently developed
guidance for assessing the quality and value of government Websites
The guidance for reporting website quality provides a directive and a method to measure the success of a website in terms of:
- User satisfaction
- Usability
- Standards compliance
- Editorial quality
- Success in delivering site objectives
In particular you should measure user satisfaction using an online survey
- A minimum of once per year
- With figures reported annually using the COI standardised report template
In addition where possible you should:
- Provide easy access to new information
- Allow users to subscribe to changes which might affect them
- Remove out-of-date material promptly
- If you are using a content management system (CMS) then set an expiry date to ensure automatic removal
- Monitor the site regularly
- Look for patterns of usage in the live site and respond accordingly (for example: promoting important and popular content, fixing issues)
- Respond promptly to any enquiries
- Acknowledge the user’s contact and set an expected response time
- Analyse the questions frequently submitted and if appropriate create a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQ)
section with anonymous versions of questions and your responses [see 8c]