Our government website has thousands of informational pages, many online self-service task flows and 20+ content editors / stakeholder groups. In the past, periodic usability surveys have been conducted with varied success in determining actionable steps to improve the user experience.
A major challenge is identifying the content that need rework. Content editors are so familiar with the content that it "looks fine to them"... though the customer call center would likely disagree.
We are prototyping and planning to pilot a feedback mechanism at the bottom of each content page similar to the Balsamiq and Apple examples below:
Balsamiq Documentation
OSX Human Interface Guidelines
Our planned solution would gather the quantitative up/down vote and then allow for qualitative free form feedback for a down vote. Data would be ajaxed to the server with minimal interruption to the user's flow.
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Foreseen Benefits
- The data could then be segmented as needed by area->application->flow->page
- Usability scores (ratio of +1/-1) could identify problem hot spots
- Qualitative feedback could get content editors started in a targeted manner.
Are we heading in a good direction? Can a page rating with feedback be more effective than a longer usability survey for identifying problem areas?
- Are there any articles or best practices for this type of feedback? It seems distinctly different that the content rating pattern in that it seeks to identify the worst content to pipe back to editors rather than promoting the best content to users. A constant feedback loop like this seems like it would generate valuable data.