The SART website has been live for around four years. It’s a website that started out as a place to talk about the Yukon’s Sexualized Assault Response Team and slowly evolved to encompass services they provide in Whitehorse and across the Yukon.

The Yukon’s SART team consists of partners from across the Yukon. Within the Government of Yukon the website is co-managed by the Women and Gender Equity Directorate and the Department of Justice.

These teams attended a UX Office Hours session to get advice on how they could best focus their time and attention to improve the website. So we made a plan to:

• conduct user research to learn how people use the website;
• determine what issues we need to focus on; and 
• implement and test solutions to address the issues.

The ultimate goal for the program area was to make sure the website is working for people and connecting them with important resources they might need.

To do this we looked at: user feedback, available analytics and we conducted a tree test with government staff, the public and service providers as well as this usability test.

What we learned

Particpants understood what the website was for

The inital question we asked participants was, "Can you tell us what you think this website is about, and who it's for?" and in all cases the particpants could tell it was a website about sexual assault and a place where victims of sexual assault could go to access supports. 

What works well on the existing website?

Even though participants ran into some issues, there were some things particpants commented on that worked really well.

• Use of bullets to break up walls of text and make it easy for people to scan for the keywords they needed.
• They did a good job explaining processes.
• Participants felt like they had a safe and secure experience on the site. They commented positively on the use of words like “confidential” and “how SART can help.”

Challenges participants had

The tree tests indicated it was challenging for people to get to the correct page to complete a task. From what we could see, this was because the information was not on a stand-alone page. It was often added to the home page or posted to several different pages on the website. And we saw this reflected through the usability testing.

It was also challenging to find specific information. For example, one of the tasks had participants look for counselling services months after they were assaulted. Participants landed on a page with “counselling” in the title, but:

• it was specific to counselling in Whitehorse and participants did not know what to do if they were from a community; and
• they were unsure of there were different counselling services available for victims depending on when the assault happened. 

Participants often failed to complete tasks in these instances.

• The information was on a page that had multiple topics. For example, parts of the website have reporting to the RCMP content intertwined with getting medical attention and getting supports to access these services.
• There was too much information on one page. Even if it was on one topic - if participants could not see it when they scanned the page, it created doubt and confusion. One participant commented, “I’m not big on reading. Everything that’s bold or bigger is what I’m gravitating to… because when I put myself in a victim’s situation… I want it to pop out.”

Top user experience issues to address

Based on all the user research the team conducted we were able to identify some common issues the team will need to address.

1. Improve the website categories so they align with their main user groups. This will bring important information for victims to the forefront of the site so they can access it. It will also have a section for more program-related content so it does not get in the way of access to services, but it's still there for people who want to refer to it.
2. Audit existing content and:
   • Remove pages that are not helpful – for example the “Not sure?” section. 
   • Consolidate information and remove duplicate and triplicate content so people don't get confused and wonder if they are on the correct page. '
   • Use page titles that set an expectation to users and make it clear what the page is about.
   • Ensure all page content is reading grade 6 to 9.
   • Use appropriate and sequential heading tags that are clearly written so users can scan page content on pages that might be information-dense.
   • Use plain language and avoid using government lingo and use words people use. For example “anonymous” rather than or in addition to “third-party reporting” or “rape kit” rather than or in addition to  “sexualized assault exam."
3. Add improved quick exit button to ensure people can leave the site without a trace.
4. Look at improving the design to help users focus on the content. For example, a few participants would select a page from the top navigation and the page content would change below, but the size of the header made it impossible for them, to tell their action was successful. 

Next steps

The project team have built the website in the government’s User Acceptance Testing (UAT) environment. They’ve added new categories and they are writing their content and adding it to the site. Once this is completed, they will retest the same tasks with another group of users to ensure an imprved user experience. They plan to relaunch the website after this work is completed.

For questions about this user research email eservices@yukon.ca or comment on this post below.