Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
This website was selected as a finalist for the 2008 Web Managers Best Practice Awards. Members of the Web Managers Forum will vote for winners, to be announced at the Government Web Managers conference May 5, 2008, in Washington, DC.
Below is this finalist's nomination form, so Forum members can learn more about the website before they vote.
Describe the top customer task you're nominating:
Finding credible online health information, specifically diseases and conditions, as well as data and statistics.
URL of the top customer task:
Describe how you identified your top customer task.The CDC User Experience team conducted an extensive user and task analysis in order to identify and define the primary users of the site, and their corresponding top tasks. The team conducted a comprehensive evaluation, including analyzing weblog, search logs, call logs, email feedback, as well as conducting direct research with users, including individual interviews, group interviews, surveys, and usability testing. The team categorized emails and phone calls by user audience in order to identify the top reasons users were contacting CDC. Survey data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) was segmented by audience type to better understand the primary reasons users were coming to the site. Data from web log and search logs was used to identify the most popular pages on the site and the top items users were searching for. The team also conducted a series of individual and group interviews to gather additional qualitative insights into users' top tasks. Lastly, the team conducted a baseline usability test with more than 75 participants. The test focused solely on the top tasks identified with each scenario being tied to the metric used to qualify as a top task.
Describe how you made this task easier to complete.
In the user and task analysis, CDC found that each of the three primary audiences and the three secondary audiences had two common goals, finding information on diseases and conditions and finding data and statistics. To improve these areas the team conducted a parallel design session and then tested three low-fidelity wireframes in a between–subjects A/B/C comparison test. During this test, CDC used the FirstClick© testing methodology, testing more than 130 scenarios with 67 users. The purpose of the test was to test three very different ways to present information to users to determine which design elicited better performance. The testing showed that users were more successful in finding data and statistics when a graph or chart was featured on the homepage. Testing also showed that the A–Z index was a critical element in users' success for finding health information. The A–Z index was improved by adding greater detail, incorporating subtopics and related topics, making it more helpful to users. Repositioning access to the A–Z as a global element on all new pages of the Web site, and into the new template design for the existing subsites, underwent several rounds of testing before being launched.
How do you routinely monitor the success of this task?
The CDC Web site is a data–driven Web site wherein, the site undergoes regular usability testing. In the last year and a half, more than 15 usability tests have been conducted with 649 participants, including one test with the CDC en Español Web site. Testing has shown that the new CDC.gov homepage and second–level pages have improved users success of the top tasks by 62 percent and improved user satisfaction by 70 percent. The team also collects data on time on task, average page views, clickstreams, as well as qualitative feedback about user frustrations. In addition, CDC has also conducted live A/B testing on the A–Z index, presenting four different design concepts on the website over a 4–week period. At the end of the month, the data was analyzed to determine which presentation elicited the greatest usage. Lastly, CDC regularly reviews the most popular pages and search terms in order to populate the "Top 20 at CDC" to match the top tasks of its users. The top tasks research has contributed to the strategic goal for development of new agency wide templates, specifically for increasing user success in locating topics and subtopics on CDC.gov.
Extra Credit: Describe what you've done to improve other critical tasks and promote critical tasks within your agency.
To promote top tasks throughout the agency, CDC holds a quarterly 'State of the Web' meeting to share progress on improving users' success on the top tasks and sharing metrics from the website with the entire agency. Additionally, CDC has created the eCDC Seminar Series training program that focuses many of its courses on usability and user–centered topics, including well–known speakers such as Ginny Redish, Cari Wolfson, and Bob Bailey. Since launching in June 2006, close to 2,000 attendees have participated in 34 seminars and 16 in–depth courses. Additionally, CDC has distributed content regarding key topics through innovative channels such as partnerships with well–known bloggers; through Second Life; links on CDC.gov to social bookmarking websites; through Health–e–cards; tag clouds to present the most popular topics on the CDC website; CDC MySpace page; via mobile alerts; positioning CDC.gov content with Target stores, providing RSS feeds and email updates through GovDelivery, and many other exciting Web 2.0 technologies. Lastly, CDC is in the process of creating new templates for the entire website that will be used to promote consistency and ease–of–use. The new templates focus on the top tasks for each topic and subtopic on the website.
Page Updated or Reviewed: April 15, 2008
