Statistics Canada's Website Evaluation 2015

Consultation objectives

In March 2015, Statistics Canada conducted an evaluation of its website to seek feedback from visitors on a number of topics, including:

• task completion success rates
• overall satisfaction with the website

Consultation methodology

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

Approximately 9,350 visitors participated in the consultation between March 16 and April 3, 2015.

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 by sending an email to consultations@statcan.gc.ca.

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.

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.

Results

Overall satisfaction

In 2015, 70% of consultation participants expressed overall satisfaction, up from 64% in 2014.

Information sought and planned use

Consultation results show that 60% of visitors were looking mostly for data and data tables on a specific topic, while 12% searched for studies, articles or publications on a specific topic.

The top three topics of interest were: population/demography (14%), health (9%) and income, pensions, spending and wealth (7%).

Participants planned to use the information primarily for:

• academic purposes and school assignments (29%)
• personal interest (17%)
• economic/financial research, analysis and planning (10%)
• policy research, development, analysis and/or evaluation (10%)
• business development or analysis (8%)

Task completion success

In 2015, 75% of participants completed their task successfully, up from 72% in 2014.

Among successful participants, 75% took 5 minutes or less to find the information they were seeking and 77% reported that finding information was easy.

About 80% of frequent visitors (those who visited the website six or more times in the last six months) were successful in completing their task, while 72% of infrequent visitors (those who visited the website fewer than six times in the last six months) were successful. The success rate was highest for participants looking for information in The Daily (88%).

Participants in government or the public sector (85%) and non-government or not-for-profit (76%) had the most success in finding information. Of all the respondents, 55% were employed and 25% were students; the remainder was a mix of self-employed (9%), retired (5%), unemployed (3%) and those not in the workforce (1%).

Areas of improvement

When asked for areas of improvement, respondents suggested ease of access to data (navigation and search) and website content (information availability).

Consultation participant profile

Employed participants came principally from three categories: business/private sector (46%), government (31%), and non-governmental organizations (12%). Among all participants, 62% were infrequent visitors. Students made up 25% of respondents.

Participants accessed the website through a variety of methods, with Google being the most popular (62%). Other methods included the use of a bookmark or favorite (9%), a link from another website (8%) and a link in an email (7%).

When asked what they used to access the website: 49% reported accessing the website via a desktop, 41% used a laptop or notebook computer. Participants were also asked how they would rate their statistical proficiency: 25% said they had a high proficiency (can manipulate datasets and do univariate or multivariate analysis); 59% said medium (can analyse and interpret data tables and turn them into useable information); 13% said low (can calculate a percentage and can display in a graph); and 4% indicated that they have no statistical proficiency at all.

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.