Know Your Audience:

Build It and They Will Come

January 19, 2011

This Session Covers Defining your website’s purpose Identifying your audience Discovering their needs Determining focus

What is Your Purpose? Why does your website exist? What are your main goals? Why do people go to your website?

CCAP Redesign Project February 2008 Sought objective guidance Three main activities Key considerations

Why Do They Visit? Why do most users visit government

websites? Pew Internet and American Life

Project Results…

They Visit To… Public policies or issues Find services Download government forms Research documents or statistics Renew license or registration Recreation or tourist information

They Visit To… Get advice on health or safety issue Get information or apply for benefits Get information or apply for job Pay a fine Apply for recreational license

Why Audience is Key? Design for audience, not you Just because one thinks it a great… Smoother internal process

Defining Characteristics… Physical demographics Cultural demographics Computer experience Computer equipment/location Frequency of visits Design expectations

Type of Users Bob Beginner Penny Poweruser Sally Surfer

Who Visits Your Site? Who is visiting? How did they find you? What do they look at? Did they find what they needed?

Ways to Learn More… Traffic reports Focus groups User surveys Social media

Traffic Reports Number of visitors New visitors Time spent Geographics Keywords Bounce rates

Focus Groups Neutral facilitator Appropriate questions Participant selection

Surveys Define goals Establish questions Do goals and questions connect… Select process Participants Analysis

Questions CCAP Asked 11 questions Mixture of type Multiple choice Ranking items CCAP Other websites

Discovering Their Needs Why are they coming to your site? How often are they visiting? Are they finding what they need? Can they find it quickly? Logins? How are that working? What else would they like to see?

Defining the Focus? Benefits of objective third party Summary versus recommendations Identifying priorities

Reference Resources All sources used in this presentation

are on the notes page of this slide.

Questions and Answers

Next Webinar

E-Services:How May We Help You?

February 16, 20111:30 – 2:30 p.m.

Thank You for Attending!

Kristin HamiltonGIS/Technology Research Director717-526-1010 X 3325khamilton@pacounties.org

If you have questions, please feel free to call or e-mail: