Search and Archiving

Consultation objectives

Statistics Canada held consultations on the usability of its website from May to December 2011 as part of ongoing website improvement.

The search tool was redesigned in June 2011 to include radio buttons which enabled users to choose between current and archived content on the site. The main objective was to determine whether Statistics Canada website visitors found this new search tool easy to use, and whether it produced the expected results for specific searches.

How to get involved

This consultation is now closed.

For more information, contact Statistics Canada through the Statistical Information Service.

Statistics Canada selects participants for each consultation to ensure feedback is sought from a representative sample of the target population for the study. Not all applicants will be asked to participate in a given consultation.

Statistics Canada is committed to respecting the privacy of consultation participants. All personal information created, held or collected by the Agency is protected by the Privacy Act. For more information on Statistics Canada's privacy policies, please consult the Privacy notice.

Methodology

Two focus group sessions were conducted with a total of 16 participants to discuss how they envisioned searching for archived material and publications. First, participants created their own designs: the designs were reviewed, along with three developed internally by Statistics Canada. As a result of these discussions, a search tool was created.

Usability testing was then conducted to ensure the tool was easy to use and responded according to users' expectations. Participants were given a series of tasks related to key functions of the search tool. The functions and design were also discussed with participants.

Results

What worked

All participants responded very positively to the new search tool. They found the radio button labels intuitive, and seemed to instinctively know that each button would produce different search results. Once participants had a chance to use the new search tool, they better understood its capabilities as well as its limitations. Two features, "Does Statistics Canada collect this information?" and the archived pages were viewed as beneficial resources.

The "Specialized search tools" link was well received, but some participants wanted to see certain options (the Statistics Canada "Thesaurus" and the "Advanced search") available without having to click this link.

What did not work

There is an inconsistency in the labelling between the home page and the main search page.

Participants did not find the "What search covers" label intuitive.

Participants ignored many of the labels and messages on the archiving pages. As a result, some did not understand that they were already in an archived publication.

Although participants found the "Does Statistics Canada collect this information?" resource very useful, they did not find the title of this link intuitive. If the list is expanded, they would like to see an A-to-Z listing for the search terms.

Recommendations

The current design and functionality of the radio buttons should be kept, but the labels should be kept consistent between the search results page and the homepage.

The "What search covers" feature needs to be described more clearly.

Remove the "What search covers" link from the homepage and the search results page. Users can now access the information from this page through the Help page.

Consider changing the title of the link or page "Does Statistics Canada collect this information?"

Statistics Canada thanks participants for their participation in this consultation. Their insights guide the Agency's web development and ensure that the final products meet users' expectations.