Findability matters: No more hide and seek

I enjoyed hide and seek as a child and I loved playing hide and seek with my kids when they were young. I don’t love playing hide and seek with content on websites, especially if I’m in a rush or it’s something important.

Whenever I’m asked to design a website, the requirements always include something along the lines of “must be simple to use”, "intuitive to navigate” and/or “content must be easily findable”. These things are obviously top of mind when designing a site, but once the site is launched, it needs taking care of. Content can bloat, labelling can become ambiguous, usability and accessibility standards change, technologies age and/or break.

All these things can lead to users not being able to find the content they are looking for. At best this creates a frustrating experience, maybe causes the audience to lose trust in the brand/organisation. At worst, depending on the website, the delay or failure caused by content hide and seek could lead to stress, financial loss, or impacts on health.

That sounds dramatic but it’s true. If your site is poorly designed or has been left unmaintained for years, there are real life consequences. But don’t worry, we’re here to help navigate the main findability issues.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to explore four of the biggest contributors to content findability and explain how they affect the experience people have on your website. While each topic is important in its own right, they all work together. A beautifully designed website won't help if users can't search effectively. Great search can't compensate for confusing navigation. Fast pages are still frustrating if they aren't accessible to everyone.

These are the kind of questions that you should be asking yourself:

• Can your users easily find the right path?
• Can everyone access your content?
• Are users leaving your site before it loads?
• Does your website search understand intent, not just keywords?

Each article in this series will take a practical look at one of these areas, explaining the common problems we see, how they impact users, and the improvements organisations can make. We'll also be running a webinar where our specialists discuss these topics in more detail and answer your questions.

Whether you're looking to improve user experience, accessibility, performance or search, our team can help you uncover the hidden barriers standing between your organisation and your audience.

Because your users should spend their time using your website in a valuable way, not playing hide and seek with it. Read more about our findability-related services.