Some research I conducted with Content Designers, Comms people and Analysts into how they are using analytics.

1. GDS@_Rossio_
Will Roissetter
May 2015

2. GDS@henryhadlow @_Rossio_ @cjforms
Research into content and
comms analytics

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Here’s what we’re (GDS)
currently doing

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Web traffic dashboards on
the Performance Platform

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This contains things like

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• Site traffic
• Most popular content
• How users access the content
• New and returning visitors
• Sources of visitors
• Total feedback received
• Most commented pages

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But, only covers gov.uk, not
content on ‘transactional
pages’

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We also collect feedback
on every page on GOV.UK

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Is there anything wrong
with this page?

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You can write feedback

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This feedback gets emailed
to the person responsible

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/info pages

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We show statistics about pages
on /info pages
eg www.gov.uk/info/tax-disc

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Problem reports are when
someone has filled in the “Is
there anything wrong
with this page?” form

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A typical page receives
300 problem reports
per million pageviews

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Ranking problem reports

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We can rank the amount of
problem reports v the volume
of traffic a page receives

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This is just a google doc at the
moment

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Not many people have access
to it

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Trending searches with
Google Sheets

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This is just a blog at the
moment

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We then went and spoke to
people

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21 people

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From 8 departments

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- DWP
- Department of Health
- Home Office
- Foreign Office
- Department of Education
- HMRC
- DEFRA
- BIS

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Content designers
Comms people
Analysts

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Asking them if they are
measuring meeting user needs

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We got some of them to map
out the triggers for creating
content/comms

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Then how that content is
created and published

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And how they evaluate success
when it goes live

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Data needs for content
designers, comms people &
analysts

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I need to know if the content
we are creating is meeting user
needs

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Is our comms helping people
use the service?

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Is our comms directing people
to the right place?

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I want all of this in one place,
multiple sources of information
is annoying

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I don’t want to rely on (the
bottleneck) GDS to get the
information I need

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I want information aggregated
so we can spot problems early

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I need granular/specific
information so I can improve
our comms and content

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Themes

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Departments don’t really know
if their content is meeting user
needs.

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“I think it’s safe to say we don’t
know that (we’re meeting user
needs) yes”
Comms analyst

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They are desperate to know
though

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Departments have limited/no
access to analytics for their
content.

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“Our department has blocked
access to analytics”
(anonymous) Performance Analyst

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Analysts are doing admin, not
analysing

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“We try and determine how well
they (people in departments)
will be able to use it (Google
Analytics). We create and manage
a bit of a triage service”
Performance Analyst

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“Requesting GA individual
access is so painful. We have to
create google accounts, we
don’t have gmail accounts”
Analyst

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We then showed them what
we are currently doing

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And got their feedback

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Web traffic dashboards

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Is an ok start

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“We need more granular
reporting, those dashboards
give us some info, but not as
granular as we need.
Analyst

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“The time periods are every six
weeks, would be good if we
could pick our own”
Analyst

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People are interested in themes
and groups. Not so much
listings of individual pages.

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EG a filter for pages to do with
immigration or the curriculum.

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/info pages

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/info pages are a great start.
When people know about
them, they use them.

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but, going to each page
manually is not very efficient

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“It would be good if we could
see these in one place”
Department of Education

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Also we could give them more
information, like this

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• date ranges
• page title
• what user need it was fulfilling
• unique visits
• time on page (criteria already set for success)
• how many comments have been sent in about that page
• in-page search terms (highest number first)
• search terms related to that page/topic
• related content on the site
• traffic trends in the year (if applicable)
• link to Feedex
Nod to @escmum for some of
this

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Ranking problem reports

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Is also great

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“How do we get this”
Department analyst

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But, it sits in a google doc…so
barely anyone has access to it

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Potential Solutions?

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Use the same pattern we have
for the services page on
Performance Platform https://
www.gov.uk/performance/
services

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And use it for content and
comms analytics

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Topics

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If you select these

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These re-order

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These show
• Searches from page
• Problem reports a
week
• Bounce rate
• Time on page

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If you want more
granular detail,
click the link

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It will take you to the /info for
that page

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The info pages could also
include a link to feedex

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Where you can see the
feedback from the ‘Is there
anything wrong with this page?’

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Anonymous feedback for”/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
/info/jobsearch
Some feedback
Some feedback
Some feedback

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Blockers

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Tagging…

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At the moment pages aren’t
tagged well enough to power
this.

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Thanks