Search Satisfaction

July 2015

Searchers vs Non-Searchers

Customer Satisfaction level for July 1 through July 20

Satisfaction Score Sample Size

Used Search 41 166

Did Not Use Search 58 354

Current Search Satisfaction

• Search is the #1 theme that people mention when asked by Foresee “If you could suggest one improvement to this site, what would it be?”

Themes from Foresee Responses

• Following are verbatim quotes from Foresee responses over recent months.

Options to Narrow• Improve the search engine so you could search just the section of the

site you are using.• The search feature provides information that is too broad in scope (too

many options). I would minimize that by creating a second layer in the search to try to focus the scope.

• provide a way to narrow search to specific information being sought...• more options to narrow the search to a specific area (don't go overboard

on the options, which will make the selection criteria to complex)• Provide search that combines more than one step thus getting to the

needed info faster.• add more detailed search options• Add an advanced search functionality that would permit algorithmic

sorting

People who know where to go…• If it could go back to being a separate site so that I wouldn't have to search within

Mass.gov to find the Trial Court Law Libraries pages.• …A simple search with key words Transitional Assistance yields 2500 links!!! What about

another question or two to assist people in narrowing down/focusing their question?...• Break it down into individualized sites so that search engines could take you right where

you wanted to go. Spending time having to search through the site is time wasted at my end.

• …If i want to find info on EEC, and search, I end up with pages from all of mass.gov and it can be overwhelming…

• Search or FAQ section for Dept of Public Health• The department of insurance information should be easier to access and search. I do not

need to be referred to other areas within the government.• I came to the mass.gov site today as an experienced professional, knowing EXACTLY what

agency I was looking for. In that case, I have found in the past that it is much quicker to type the name of the agency in the search bar, rather than try to wade through all the clicks required to reach the site if I do NOT know the exact name of the agency. I believe this could be streamlined for less experienced or less sophisticated users.

• ROBUST search engine. Clearer department/category organization of site.

Date

• Search results should be dated for easy filtering.• Less old information when searching by a keyword.• better results from search, also sorted by most recent• able to search by typing particular things, year or

numbers• Provide search results sorted most recent first; also

provide clearer descriptions of the links to the various forms pages. On my first round, 2011 tax forms came up first. I had printed them all before noticing it's the wrong year.

Too much useless stuff….• Better search results - always get WAY too much irrelevant information• don't bring up non relevant results for search topics, way too many and

nothing to do with search you put in.• More focused search filter to reduce number of irrelevant hits• too much information given, had to search within searches, hard to find

what I was looking for• The search engine resulted in too many links that were unrelated to my

search.• Make the results from the Search more relevant• not have thousands of irrelevant results to a search. I was looking for the

Consumer Protection Division and thought it would be in a prominent place.

• …a search that only loads useless PDF files…

No Results

• For Search Feature to work as it should. No Results for children and Family Services?

• …I type in credit insurance and no results• As above re search function - it is useless. Most of the

time, the response I get is No Results even though I have given the exact name of what I am looking for; the rest of the time, I am forwarded to something unrelated.

• search should handle phrases. single word search brings options, but often too many. 3 or more words lands in no results found

Suggested Changes

1. Make it easier for users to narrow search to specific areas of the site and by date

2. Make it easier for users to broaden their search if they see no results

3. Make it easier for users to get directly to an organization page from the search results page