Feb
13

How Many Web Pages Can One Person Manage?

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It’s a question that gets to the heart of managing Web content: How many Web pages can one person manage? Organizations need to know for staffing and resourcing purposes, and to make sure content managers are focusing on high-priority areas. Content managers need to know for effective program and project management. Ask the question in your organization, and you’re likely to get a different response from every person you ask (and start a debate).

See how your results align with results from an online survey of 100 Web content managers. I conducted this research as an extension of my studies in the Master of Information Management program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where my studies focused on website management and governance issues.

The survey found that:

1. Most content managers reported working on small or medium-sized websites (the single largest category was sites with under 1,000 Web pages).

2. The single largest category of number of pages that a person manages is less than 100; but half of respondents said they are responsible for 1,000 pages or more (up to 100,000 pages).

3. 36% of survey respondents said that a content manager could effectively manage more than 1,000 pages. At the opposite end was 29%, who said 100 or 200 pages.

Pie chart shows that 36% of survey respondents said that a content manager could effectively manage more than 1,000 pages.

Figure. 36% of survey respondents said that a content manager could effectively manage more than 1,000 pages.

4. Most (60%) believe the number of Web pages they control is not interfering with their ability to manage content.

5. Of the 40% who said that the number of Web pages they are responsible for interfered with their ability to effectively manage their website, 60% said this happens “very frequently” or “frequently”.

So…

How many Web pages can one person really manage?

It seems the answer depends on who you ask, what they do, and what they’re customers need.

First, it’s apparent that content management is getting more complex for some. Static Web pages are giving way to database-driven content, community- and user-driven content, and an increasing number of Web page objects (such as APIs). On the other hand, if pages don’t have much content or don’t need to be updated very often, that content might take much less time to manage.

Second, “managing a website” can mean different things to different people. Some are responsible only for content. And some are responsible for managing or contributing to a variety of website work, including content, design, usability, accessibility, social media, digital strategy, and more. The more disciplines a content manager needs to engage with, the fewer number of pages he or she will likely be able to manage effectively.

Finally, we should ask what a website is doing for its customers; that is, how it’s meeting customers’ top tasks. Listening to customers, reviewing data, optimizing content—all require time and effort. (For more on meeting customer needs, see HowTo.gov’s 10 guidelines to help you improve your digital services and customer service.)

Considering all these factors, it’s easy to see why the answer depends on so many different things.

Now, what would content managers in your organization say?

(Revised and reprinted from a CMSWire article.)

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Feb
11

Above & Beyond Metrics: Tell a Story with Reports

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Sarah Kaczmarek

Sarah Kaczmarek is an Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Last week I presented a webinar for DigitalGov University,  Above & Beyond Metrics: Tell a Story with Reports.  In this presentation I gave some  helpful tips to interpret and present your metrics in a meaningful and engaging manner.  Here are the highlights:

How to Interpret Your Metrics in Context

  • Consider the purpose of your site. Take your bounce rate for example (the percentage of visitors that only looked at one page and immediately left your site). If your site primarily serves to refer visitors to other websites, then you would expect to see a higher bounce rate, perhaps 70% or above. On the other hand, if the purpose of your website is to provide content, you might hope to see a bounce rate closer to 30% or 40%.
  • Look at how your metrics relate to one another. When looking at your bounce rate, for example, consider how it compares to your other engagement metrics. Comparing bounce rates with time on page, visits per visitor, and your percent of returning visitors can help you understand more about the experience your users are having.
Word Cloud of Engagement Metrics

Look at how your metrics relate to one another

  • Listen to what your users have to say. Customer satisfaction information and usability testing can provide valuable context for interpreting your metrics. If you aren’t sure whether your bounce rate suggests users are quickly finding what they want and leaving, or that they simply left unsatisfied, there’s nothing like hearing feedback directly from your users themselves.

How to Tell a Story with Your Metrics

  • Consider what surprised you in the data. You know your site well; if something surprised you, it’s worth exploring.
  • Think about where you see room for improvement. Your ideas for site enhancements can help bring meaning to your metrics in your writing. Focus on a few key areas where concrete changes could improve users’ experience.
  • Present your data in style. If you would be bored reading your report, chances are so will others, and they may just miss the message (same rule applies to presentations). Don’t be afraid to try something new, and make sure to use meaningful graphics to break up text.
Pageviews of key pages

Use meaningful graphics to present data

Next Steps:

Watch  Meaningful Metrics—From Gathering to Analyzing Digital Metrics

Review the Digital Metrics Guidance &  Google Analytics for Government Training Manual

Use the Quarterly analytics report template & Weekly analytics report template

 

Stay in Touch!

By email at Kaczmareks@gao.gov & Twitter @StudioSarah

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Feb
08

“Think-Aloud” Protocol Can Influence Results of Usability Testing

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Usability test in progress. Photo via Creative Commons and l-i-n-k.

A common practice in usability testing is to ask individual test participants to describe what they are doing as they complete the tasks in a test scenario. The “Think-Aloud” protocol, or method, asks test participants to maintain a running commentary about what they are doing and why. By analyzing verbal feedback from test participants, usability professionals gain valuable information about how users experience websites and other user interfaces.

In a recent DigitalGov University webinar, usability expert Erica Olmsted-Hawala (U.S. Census Bureau) discussed the theory behind the original think-aloud method, described a later variant of the method, and noted the various ways in which the think-aloud approach is applied by usability practitioners.  Although usability practitioners tend to favor an active approach to probing the test participant, practitioners typically do not report the style of their think-aloud protocols.

Erica went on to describe the conditions in an experiment conducted in 2010 on think-aloud methods (Olmsted-Hawala, Murphy, Hawala, & Ashenfelter, 2010):

  1. Traditional: This method required the test administrator to say as little as possible to keep the test participant talking. The only permissible verbal cue was “Keep talking.”
  2. Speech-communication:  This method allowed the test administrator to acknowledge the test participant’s verbalizations with “Mm-hmm?” or “Uh-huh?” in addition to “Keep Talking.”
  3. Coaching: The test administrator was trained to ask the participant for feedback and actively intervene with probes, such as “Did you notice that link up here?”, “You’re doing great,” or “Can you explain why you clicked on that link?”
  4. Silent control:  The test participant completed tasks silently, and the test administrator gave no verbal feedback.

The question explored by the 2010 experiment is whether the style of the think-aloud protocol matters to the results of usability testing.  Results indicate that the kind of think-aloud protocol definitely matters. As pointed out by Betty Murphy (Human Solutions, Inc.), practitioners, as well as test sponsors, need to be aware of the potential effects on participant accuracy and satisfaction.  Inflated usability findings can mislead decision makers about the actual usability of a user-interface design.

Statistical analysis of the data collected on test-participant accuracy, showed that those in the “coaching” condition achieved significantly greater accuracy than did those in the other conditions.  Conducted in the Census Bureau’s Usability Laboratory, the experiment revealed that test participants did better on their tasks and reported higher levels of satisfaction when they were being coached by a test administrator than they would be likely to do in an unassisted field setting. In other words, their accuracy rates and satisfaction with the website were significantly higher than were the comparable results for the other conditions. There were no significant differences, however, between the traditional, speech-communication and coaching conditions in the amount of time it took participants to complete their tasks.

Although usability practitioners may continue using active think-aloud methods, they and their sponsors are cautioned about assuming that test results will reflect the actual usability of the user interface.  Actual usability is likely to be significantly poorer than such results would indicate.  Olmsted-Hawala and Murphy recommend the following practices to help users of test results gauge the accuracy of reported usability findings:

  • Use only traditional or speech-communication methods for evidence of how accurately users will complete tasks “in the field.”
  • Accurately document the kind of think-aloud protocol used for each usability test.

The presenters urge the usability community to develop and follow standards for the use of think-aloud protocols.

For more information, watch the webinar on-demand at howto.gov.

By guest bloggers Betty Murphy, Human Solutions, Inc. and Erica Olmsted-Hawala, U.S. Census Bureau.

 Reference

Olmsted-Hawala, E., Murphy, E., Hawala, S. and Ashenfelter, K., (2010). “Think-Aloud Protocols: A Comparison of Three Think-Aloud Protocols for use in Testing Data Dissemination Web Sites for Usability.”  Proceedings of CHI 2010, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press: pp 2381-2390.

 

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Feb
07

12 Big Ideas & Predictions for 2013

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Anthony Calabrese is a Digital Communications Manager at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

We saw some big changes across the federal government with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012. And it was a big year for innovation at the Department of Health & Human Services, where I’m part of a great team that’s working to transform us into the digital age. Looking forward, 2013 promises to be even bigger!

My colleagues at the Digital Communications Division at HHS and the Federal Web Managers Council have teamed up to bring you 12 big ideas & predictions for 2013:

  1. Help Wanted: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Coordinator will become official titles for positions within the federal government. Why does this matter? The right social media team can react quickly and effectively in time of crisis and take advantage of a Super Bowl-sized opportunity on the fly.
  2. 2013 will be the year that ‘m-dot’ died. More web managers will move to responsive design for their websites or mobile apps for targeted content.
  3. Not just responsive design. Responsive content too! Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement.
  4. At your service! The success of the Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov) will mean we are finally giving citizens the level of customization and personalization they’ve been getting for years from private sector services.
  5. May I have your attention please? The use of rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
  6. AP… what? Structured content and “content as data” will be game changers. This year, everybody will finally understand what an API is and what it does.
  7. #%@! Analytics & sentiment analysis will have a big impact on social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
  8. [INFOGRAPHIC] Infographics like this will grow in importance as a light, sharable, and printable alternative to video.
  9. Here’s to your health! Health data will hit the mainstream as key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year. And HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
  10. Open Government: Open source platforms will continue to dominate as content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government.
  11. Git with the program! If you haven’t heard of GitHub, Twitter Bootstrap, and LESS CSS, you will by the end of 2013. They may change the way we do web.
  12. Not just for zombies. Gamification, incentivization, and competition on social media platforms will help our content to go viral. Engagement – it’s not just for zombies anymore.

Let us know what you think and share your own ideas and predictions in the comments.  Stay tuned for 12 more predictions coming soon…

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Feb
06

“Hiding” Right Out There in the Open

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CDC map of the geographic spread of the influenza virus for the week ending January 26, 2013.

Reblogged from the data.gov blog.

Want to know what the weather is? Today we have so many ways to find out:  check one of many sites on the Internet – or, more likely, you’ll find the temperature and links to forecasts conveniently on your e-mail provider’s home page. Then there are, of course, TV, radio and newspaper forecasts.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, Matt Lauer – or more important, how do you get to where you want to be? Use your smartphone or the GPS in your car.

And how prevalent is the flu? We may have gotten sick from all the stories that have inundated us in the past few weeks.

And finally, what’s the point of all these questions?

The point is that all this information ultimately comes from your government for free. (It already belongs to you, anyway.) And it’s available through Data.gov. In a way, it’s hiding in plain sight.

Even more important, this is such a normal part of life that we don’t even think of this as “government data” but take it for granted as basic to getting through the day. This “data” is collected by the public service as well as by technology (such as satellites in the case of weather and GPS). Most of us use it after other people and technology make it easier to understand, people whose jobs are often even dependent on the availability of this data for free so they can to profitably provide the services and information we can use.

Here are just a couple of examples:

FluView National Flu Activity Map

National Weather Service RSS Feed

What you’ll find here on Data.gov is a free national resource for everyone, from data itself to the apps and communities where you can share what you know or want to find out. Explore and enjoy!

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