With over 1.3 million visitors each year, the website is an important source of information for the community, particularly during fire season.
Improvements will be made to make it easier for people to find the information they need – whether this be checking the latest warnings and incidents, finding fire danger ratings, creating a bushfire plan or learning how to become a volunteer.
The aim is to create a more user-friendly website.
Usability testing was conducted last year to test how easy or difficult it was for people to perform certain online tasks, such as ‘Find your local Township Protection Plan’ or ‘Find the phone number for the CFA District HQ in your area’. This helped to identify what was working well, what wasn’t and what needed improving.
In February this year 38 participants, including eight volunteers, participated in a second round of testing focusing on the information architecture of the site. Working in pairs, they were asked to sort 100 items of website content into categories that made sense to them, and give each category a label.
This activity provided direction on how the site should be structured.
CFA Online Communications Adviser Jessica Deery says community testing and public feedback is driving the changes, which will happen over the next few months.
“Many people tell us that they can’t find what they’re looking for when they visit the site. So we’re going to reshuffle pages and content and change the labels of sections so they’re clear and helpful.
“The look and feel will also change slightly so that each section has a consistent style and navigation.
“We’re not building a new website, just rejigging the existing one. And the more feedback we have, the better the site can be.”
If you are logged in to CFA Connect you can post your suggestions and feedback in the comments box below.
Community members can post their feedback and suggestions using the Feedback tab at the edge of this page.
You can also send an email to j.deery@cfa.vic.gov.au
Regular updates including test versions for commenting on will be posted to CFA Connect throughout the redesign.
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