Usability testing of the Wellscotland website
About
NHS Health Scotland is the National Health Improvement Agency for Scotland. Their principal purpose is to work with partners to take action to improve health and reduce health inequalities in Scotland. NHS Health Scotland provides professional leadership and helps understand the causes of health problems in Scotland and how to address them.
What did we do?
Through a competitive tender process, NHS Health Scotland commissioned Innovation Digital to help aid in the evolution of their website portfolio and to undertake usability testing of the Wellscotland website. The main objectives of the project were to discover:
- Any usability issues in terms of navigation, layout, content and completion of key tasks
- Any labelling which may be unclear or ambiguous
- Any problems with the information architecture
- What audiences the site should be aimed at
- Any content issues
Innovation Digital undertook two broad areas of research in order to meet the client objectives:
- Test, through user testing, the effectiveness of recent developments to the sites. This would include the homepage, site architecture, gateway content, search and functionality.
- Provide recommendations for the information architecture for moving forward in terms of how key audiences access the information.
How did we go about it?
Innovation Digital carried out a comprehensive usability testing project on the Wellscotland website.
We tested 18 users during 18 one hour user testing sessions at our offices in Glasgow and Well Scotland web development supplier’s offices in Edinburgh. Users were recorded and monitored during the test and results were combined and collated and analysed.
Innovation Digital was involved at all stages of the usability tests including carrying out the user research, creating scenarios and scripts, heuristic evaluations, recruitment and managing the usability tests with eye tracking software.
The Results
The findings from each phase were analysed and then presented to NHS Health Scotland as a comprehensive report.
This report included the following:
- Key findings from each phase of the project.
- Key recommendations for:
- Navigation and labelling
- Information architecture (page layouts)
- Content and Meta tagging
- Other key functionality such as Search
- A schematic detailing the recommending structure for proposed amendments (If appropriate )
- Usability tests on DVD
- Recommendations for moving the website forward based on findings and recommendations. This will cover areas such as: Design, Information Architecture and Content Strategy
Related work
The Scottish Government
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Scottish Qualification Authority
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Healthcare Improvement Scotland
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