Monitoring and measuring task success: Continuous improvement of web content

On this page

• Establish performance indicators
• GC Task success survey
• Monitoring other performance indicators
• Continuous improvement

Monitor and measure content after it goes live. Continuous improvements throughout the content’s life cycle avoids high-effort optimization projects down the road.

Establish performance indicators

For continuous improvement to work well, you need to establish performance indicators and identify data sources that help you evaluate how your content or service is performing.

We can use data to make sure that:

• people can complete their task
• content is easy to find and understand
• information is up to date and accurate

GC Task Success Survey

As part of reporting requirements for the Government of Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada has adopted the task success survey method as a primary means of measuring the performance of web content and services.

All departments and agencies subject to theDirective on the Management of Communicationsare required to implement the GC Task Success Survey on their web properties.

• GC Task Success Survey

Monitoring other performance indicators

Monitoring other data sources and performance indicators can uncover potential problems with your content or service.

Combining data from multiple sources gives you a richer picture of how your content or service is performing.

Additional data sources include:

• user feedback
• call centre data (calls, emails)
• social media monitoring
• web analytics
• interviews (users, front-line staff)
• usability tests with talk-aloud protocol
• others (financial statements, public opinion research, etc.)

It’s best to combine metrics with usability testing to validate proposed improvements.

• Page feedback tool
• Collect feedback, find issues(blog post)
• The importance of working with call centres(blog post)

Continuous improvement

Use the data you’ve been monitoring (such as user feedback, analytics, and user research) to find ways to improve your content. Evaluate proposed improvements with usability testing.

Over time, programs and policies change and your content will need to change accordingly. With each change comes a new opportunity to research, prototype, and test out solutions before going live.