True Content Winners: Accessibility & Usability
I use the following line in many of my ‘day job’ meetings with clients on their website content.
“Nobody will ever comment that they found too much information, too easily on your site.”
(this also gets a laugh every time out of the client, from it’s simple truth)
On the other end of this quote, a few users will share with you that information was vague and really hard to find on your site. Then factor in the hundreds or thousands of users that felt this way and left your site never to come back. That’s the last thing I want for FindBuffalo, so I’m working through avenues of gathering valuable information and making it a breeze to find out about it. At the same time, I also must balance the small amount of time I can dedicate to managing the site. Here are some items I am providing and working on providing on the site:
- City of Buffalo Newsletter: Valuable to all city residents. We all get a copy in the mail, but I would guess many have a few hours of shelf life and then get tossed. On FindBuffalo, they can stay here forever.
- Buffalo School District Newsletter: I have put in a request with the schools to post the newsletter on FindBuffalo and I foresee them agreeing to do so (say yes! to spreading the word). I also see it as a more likely way to connect with the students, not just the parents, after all … this is their medium of choice.
- City News: The city posts a ton of info on their site, send flyers with my utilities and other various methods. While the City is definitely behind with their site layout and usability, I’ll look to convey their info here in a more streamlined and searchable manner.
- Local News: The local radio station, KRWC posts news items daily or every other day. I grab one based on what I think it’s relevance is an post it on FB. I would LOVE if they ever added some RSS feeds so I could just pull that sucker in, but again … I’m just satisfied they have a website.
As you can see from this small snippet I’m aiming to offer information from 30 or 40 sites overall in one place, making that information more accessible. To keep usability a priority I will push to keep navigation clean and understandable. Nobody likes to guess how they arrived where they are at, or not even have a clue where to go. Using simple and direct terms, crumb nav, content links, a site map and more can keep me on top of this. In the works right now are various RSS feeds from FindBuffalo to let my faithful know of site updates. This all will be more challenging as the site grows with information, but remembering to “Keep it simple stupid” will make my users feel smart and then fel like coming back again … and again … and again.
So, with that as the closing, I’ll see you back here tomorrow.