Understanding the Needs of a Varied Web Audience

Understanding the needs of web audience

ICAEW is a world leading professional membership organisation that promotes, develops and supports over 140,000 chartered accountants worldwide. They provide qualifications and professional development, share knowledge, insight and technical expertise, and protect the quality and integrity of the accountancy and finance profession.

‍

As part of an on-going drive to improve online services ICAEW came to us to conduct a usability study that will help them to understand the needs of its varied web audience. The aim of the usability study was to enable ICAEW to tailor its online services to meet user expectations and provide a website that offers useful functions, important information and relevant practical advice to their membership base.

‍

The focus of the testing was to see if members were getting a return on investment on their membership fees, and also to test a new magazine microsite.

Focusing on the customer journeys and the booking system

‍

We recruited a representative user base of 8 users working with the key target audiences and user segmentations and conducted user testing over a 2 day period in central London to observe and prompt users for responses using the ‘think out loud’ methodology. We also gathered user’s opinions and thoughts by way of a survey at the end of the testing session.

‍

We presented the final key findings and facilitated a ½ day discussion with the team on ways of improving the site going forwards based on the findings from the user testing.

Localising the improvements

‍

We provided specific, prioritised recommendations for the site to improve future results. Helped identify findings around content e.g. some category labels were misleading such as ‘Standards and compliance’. Participants were frustrated when they found content that they had to join an additional faculty to access.