Statistics Canada's Website Evaluation 2011

Consultation objectives

In June 2011, Statistics Canada conducted an evaluation of its website to seek feedback from website visitors on a number of topics, including

• task completion success rates
• overall level of satisfaction with the website
• priorities for improving the website
• recent changes to the website, namely the Latest Census Data pages and Statistics by Subject

Consultation methodology

Statistics Canada used an intercept technology deployed across the website to invite all visitors to participate by completing a short questionnaire with optional content.

Almost 5,800 visitors participated, corresponding to a 4% response rate.

How to get involved

This consultation is now closed.

Individuals who wish to obtain more information or to take part in a consultation should contact Statistics Canada through the National Contact Centre.

Please note that 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.

Results

Information sought and planned use

Consultation results show that 38% of visitors were looking mostly for data and data tables on a specific topic, while 16% searched for studies, articles or publications on a specific topic.

Among participants, 12% sought information on prices, making this the most popular topic; 11% looked for information on population/demography, 10% searched for information on health and 8% sought data on labour. Nearly half of participants looked for social statistics.

Participants planned to use the information primarily for

• Personal interest (22%)
• Academic purposes and school assignments (14%)
• Policy research, development, analysis and/or evaluation (13%)
• Economic/financial research, analysis and planning (9%)
• Business development or analysis (7%)

Task completion success

In 2011, 74% of participants completed their task successfully, up from 65% in 2010. About 80% of the frequent visitors were successful in completing their task. The rate was highest for participants looking for information in The Daily (93%).

The top topics of interest all recorded success rates at or above 70%. Nearly 80% of successful participants took less than 5 minutes to find the information they were seeking, with around 75% of successful participants reporting that finding information was easy.

Overall satisfaction

In 2011, 68% of consultation participants expressed overall satisfaction, slightly up from 65% in 2010.

Suggestions for improvement

Ease of access to data (search engine, navigation and website organization) and website content (information availability) remain the major areas for improvement.

Consultation participant profile

Participants came principally from three main sectors: government (26%), business (22%) and education (21%), similar to website evaluation results in previous years. Among participants, just over half were infrequent visitors.

Participants were also asked to indicate which methods they most often used to access the website: 70% of them reported accessing the website via a desktop, 58% used a laptop or notebook and 6% use a mobile device. Although still relatively small, the proportion of participants using a mobile device to access the website is growing.

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.