{"id":359,"date":"2017-10-26T15:01:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T14:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetforyou.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=359"},"modified":"2017-10-26T15:01:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T14:01:23","slug":"tree-testing-the-roots-for-a-successful-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2017\/10\/26\/tree-testing-the-roots-for-a-successful-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Tree testing: the roots for a successful website"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before we can delve into creating the shiny new content for our website, we need to decide on the fundamental structure of how we will organise and label the content. In other words the Information Architecture (IA).<\/p>\n

Think of the website as a tree \u2013 the trunk is the homepage and each branch is a section of the website. Dorsetforyou holds information on \u00a07 different councils in Dorset, so it\u2019s a mighty oak that we\u2019re dealing with and it\u2019s critical we get this bit right.<\/p>\n

Getting rid of the dead wood<\/h2>\n

Our current website is a deep forest and some parts are rather overgrown (I hope you\u2019re not bored of the tree puns yet, there are a few more to come!). User testing and feedback has shown us that some customers struggle to find what they\u2019re looking for as the information can be buried deep in the site.<\/p>\n

With our new website we want to find ways to lose pointless layers of navigation. Instead,\u00a0we\u2019ll have a \u00a0wider site, so it doesn\u2019t need to be so deep. A neat grove of well pruned trees, if you like.<\/p>\n

\"current
Our current IA has several layers to get to the content you need.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tree testing – making sure we\u2019re making sense<\/h2>\n

Tree testing looks at how easily people can find information on a website, and it shows exactly where people get lost. It can help us find out if content is grouped logically for our users and if it\u2019s labelled in a way that makes sense.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been using \u00a0this type of testing on our existing IA, based on the most popular \u00a0tasks that people complete on our site.<\/p>\n

We recently launched the first tasks \u00a0on social media, through \u00a0our Dorsetforyou Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a> accounts and we got an overwhelming response! We are using the results to help determine our new IA, focused on users\u2019 needs, how they would choose to organise the website, and the everyday words they use for council services.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the first bit done but there\u2019s more user testing to come, so follow us on Facebook and Twitter and\u00a0 keep an eye out if you’d like to get involved and help us build the new \u00a0Dorsetforyou.<\/p>\n

Thank you<\/h2>\n

A big thank you to everyone that has completed the user testing so far, it\u2019s helped us immensely. You\u2019ve been tree-mendous!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we can delve into creating the shiny new content for our website, we need to decide on the fundamental structure of how we will organise and label the content. In other words the Information Architecture (IA). Think of the website as a tree \u2013 the trunk is the homepage and each branch is a… Read more Tree testing: the roots for a successful website<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[28,27],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}