Since 2015, NCDIT’s Digital Solutions team has helped creators like you move 90 state websites to the Digital Commons platform- and more come aboard every year! From serious subjects like government, taxes, and public health, to more light-hearted material on recreation, the arts, and tourism, websites on Digital Commons serve a broad range of content to a variety of audiences.
Appeal to your Peers
Who uses your website? Whether it be a parent researching school report cards on NC DPI, or a group of college friends exploring campsites on NC Parks, State web content is often aimed at the general public- but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the audience for your website (or a section of it) is your peers: other State employees.
It’s easy to make assumptions about an audience when you are a member of that audience yourself. But so many factors impact the way a person will interact with and understand your content: culture; gender; age; disabilities; expertise in their field; longevity in state employment; newness in their role- and more. How can you find out if your information architecture and content work well for your audience?
Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3…
One of the many benefits of hosting your website on Digital Commons (aside from being a secure, accessible, and mobile-friendly platform) is the suite of Digital Services we provide our users. Usability testing is one such service. Usability testing helps you better understand your users, the top tasks they need to do on your website, and how you can help them find information more quickly.
We recently conducted a usability test of the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) website. We met employees working in Budget Analyst or similar roles from a variety of State agencies and universities to understand how they navigate and use the Budget section of the OSBM website to complete their duties.
Results Roundup
Staff at OSBM now have data to help improve the website without guesswork. Here are some things we observed that may help you clarify content on your own website:
- When you create content that someone needs so they can do their job, keep in mind that some of your visitors are brand new employees; whether that means they are new to the workforce, returning after a long break, changing fields, or seasoned but new to State government.
- When you need to provide step-by-step instructions, consider using the How To content type. It easily outlines your process in numbered steps and you can provide “bonus content” within the sidebars of the Tabs/Accordion.
- Users like and use the Popular Topics buttons on the Home Page Search Block.
- Users aren’t fond of PDFs, and it doesn’t matter if they open in the same window or a new one; users feel lost either way. Convert content to HTML when there’s no General Statue requiring it to be a PDF.
- The Carousel Component looks cool… but users will still sometimes scroll right past it when scanning for key words.
- Ask Digital Solutions for help creating a custom Catalogue if it would help users navigate your content.
High Value, Low Cost
What does usability testing cost? Well, if you were to contract out for usability testing, it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.1 (If my Dad heard that, he’d cry out, “Great googley woogley!”) Fortunately for you, it’s already part of the services Digital Services already offers at a low cost, if not free of charge. Send a support request to let us know how we can help you!
Additional Resources
- 1
Rapid User Testing starts at $40,000 USD, per the Nielsen Norman Group as of 4/30/2026.