You can explore your users’ interests, opinions and preferences using data from existing sources or from targeted data collection activities. This is known as user research.

Existing data sources

Depending on the topic and publication, user data may already be available.

You can explore the following:

  • What users have engaged with in the past. Sources can include data from previous versions of a publication or similar publications.

  • Site analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) for existing digital content. These will tell you what users are selecting, what they are searching for, and the pages they ‘bounce’ from (i.e. pages from which they exit your site) when they do not find what they need. This will help you to develop your content plan and understand which topics most interest users, and which content is confusing or less useful.

  • What users have liked and shared on social media. General social media statistics and research, much of which is available for free online, can be used to find out about overall user interests and trends. You can look at both qualitative data (free-form text feedback in the comments section, hashtags associated with a post) and quantitative data (number of times a post or update is ‘liked’ or shared with other social media users, number of times an associated hashtag is used).
  • What users have told you directly. Direct sources of information include any feedback that you may have collected from previous publications and surveys or existing websites, including customer queries, suggestions, complaints and ideas.
  • What search terms people are using online. Tools such as Google Trends can
    • tell you what terms or phrases people are using to look for information
    • compare popularity of search terms and phrases
    • tell you how search terms and phrases vary across regions
    • tell you how search terms and phrases vary over time.

Targeted data collection

At its simplest, targeted data collection can be asking your colleagues, friends or family for their opinions about your content. But talking to or surveying audience groups can provide feedback specific to their context and needs, and is more useful than asking people you know. 

Targeted data collection allows you to home in on exactly what users want. It also allows you to develop informed user personas. You can explore user characteristics and preferences, such as:

  • topics – what do users want to know? What do they find most important?

  • breadth and depth – are users looking for basics or details? What do they know already, and what do they want answered?

  • completeness – do users want the content to be standalone? Do they expect to see everything in your publication, or are they happy to go to another source of information?

  • language – what is the most appropriate style? What reading level will users have?

To find your target audiences, contact relevant community or professional organisations. You can also hire consultants specialising in market research to recruit members of the audiences you want to reach.

There are several targeted data collection methods.

Surveys

Surveys may be conducted over the phone or online, and can be a cost-effective way of gathering large amounts of quantifiable data. Online surveys are often useful because they automatically collate the data. There are several online survey sites to choose from. However, you should keep your users in mind when deciding whether to use an online survey. Some users that have technological challenges may not want to complete an online survey, even if they use your website.

Interviews and focus groups

You can interview users – as focus group or as one-on-one interviews – to find out how they talk, think and behave. 

Familiarise yourself with any existing user research before starting to plan questions and talk to people. You can learn more about user needs, goals, and motivations if we ask about who, what, why, when, where and how. For example:

  • Who – Who are our users? Are there well-developed archetypes/personas? If not, what do we know? What educated guesses can we make?
  • What – What do users want to do? What are they trying to achieve? What are their tasks?
  • Why – Why do they want to achieve these tasks? What are their motivations?
  • When – When are they doing these tasks?
  • Where – What device are they using? Where are they? At home? At work? On transport?
  • How – How well are we doing at meeting user needs? How does the site perform? How do we compare to others?

You can use these background questions as a springboard for specific research when you talk to users. The ‘5Ws and an H’ can also serve as a starting point for framing questions and revealing gaps in your existing knowledge. Some of the answers will help you to clarify things; others could take you into new and surprising territories. Finding out who your users are and learning what you already know about them can help you to identify places to fix or improve content.

One-on-one interviews can be done face to face, online or on the telephone, using a discussion guide. Focus groups are usually face to face with a facilitator and a set of questions or topic areas to facilitate discussion. 

The data gathered from talking to people vary with the discussion, and are not easily analysed using quantitative methods. But these data complement the more concentrated data from surveys, providing a forum for new ideas and an interactive discussion, and allowing you to dig into any interesting points raised by participants.

It can be helpful to record interviews, but you must ask for permission before recording.

Ongoing feedback

Feedback can be collected online or in hard copy, and gives you the opportunity to ask specific questions from users who have found and used your content. Yes–no questions, such as ‘Did you find this brochure useful?’, and open-ended questions, such as ‘What else would you like to see on this page?’, will contribute useful feedback.

Using user data

User data can be used to create user profiles and personas, and to inform your content development:

Knowing what users buy, select or search for tells you the topics you should include and prioritise. It can also tell you the language that should be used in headings or metadata to improve searching.

Knowing what users do not like or bounce off tells you which topics you could move down in priority, or what may need to be rewritten to make it clearer.

Specific suggestions from users can be fed into your content plan.

The data gathered from user research and usability testing can be used to ensure that the product’s features and content are aligned with the target audience. You can alter the content structure if it does not work as intended, change the language if users find it too difficult or unsuitable, and add any website functionalities that may be missing.

If users’ biographical data are available, they can be correlated with your user research data to see how different groups respond to the content. Patterns in their responses may reflect demographic factors such as age, education, language background or professional training). You can use these data to fine-tune your content.

The Australian Government Content strategy guide has detailed guidance on defining user content needs(Opens in a new tab/window), including understanding users and conducting user research activities.

Usability testing

Usability testing, or user experience (UX) testing, is the process of testing a product, feature or prototype with real users. Most commonly, it is the process of testing different aspects of a website to ensure that users can find and understand content. 

For usability testing to be most effective, the users should be members of the target audiences, and testing should be repeated as the content evolves. Usability testing can be done at every stage of content development.

You can conduct your own usability testing just by interviewing users individually, or you can hire commercial user-testing groups to conduct testing with your audiences. 

Usability testing does not need to be an involved or large process. Indeed, getting input from small groups of users several times as you develop the content is probably more valuable than completing a single large experiment.

Preliminary content testing

At the beginning of the project, users can complete ‘card sorting’ exercises to inform the development of the structure of the publication or website. Card sorting can be open or closed:

  • With open card sorting, you put example content on a set of cards and ask users to sort the cards into groups of similar content. You then develop labels for the groups.

  • With closed card sorting, you develop a set of categories and put example content on a set of cards. You ask users to sort the cards into the predetermined categories.

Testing with drafts and prototypes

When you have a preliminary draft or prototype, you can test it directly with users. The testing can involve the following:

  • Scenarios. For a website at wireframe or design stage, users can be given scenarios to test the information architecture (IA) of the site. You give the user a scenario (e.g. ‘You need to find out how to sell your house. Where would you go?’, ‘You are worried about a rash on your child. What do you select?’) and watch to see what the user does. If users have difficulty completing the task, this tells you that your IA may not work as well as expected.
  • Content evaluation. It is a good idea to include draft content in user testing, so that you can gain feedback on how clear and useful the content is. Ask questions to get feedback on all content features, including text, calls to action and visuals.
  • Functionality evaluation. Users can be helpful in checking the quality of a website’s functionalities. Users can comment on
    • search terms and search engine optimisation (SEO) – do users find your content through search engines using the keywords you would expect?
    • links – do links go to useful destinations?
    • searching – do keyword searches work properly and find the correct content?
    • printing – do sections print appropriately?
  • Eye-tracking studies. These can provide objective information on user behaviour with a publication or website. In eye-tracking experiments, the user’s eye movements and their navigation pathways are digitally recorded while they search for specific information. This shows exactly how users navigate and scan content.