Analysis and news
link to the page mentioned above.
• Dynamic download buttons, which make it clear whether a product can be immediately downloaded, or only after authentication, depending on the user’s state. We’ve also begun talks with the Seamless Access group, and are working to implement a solution in line with RA21 recommendations by the end of the year.
Last summer, an external consultant conducted a thorough accessibility review of
degruyter.com. She gave us high marks in comparison to our legacy site, which she also reviewed, and delivered a short list of remaining issues for our backlog. We’re now compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA).
What are your main goals and how do you keep track of progress? Coming from a site, and process, with little to no consideration for UX, our primary goal last year was to achieve what we think of as ‘baseline UX’ – that is, no bells and whistles, but everything on the site is clear, readable and usable, driven by user needs,
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and we have an effective process in place for ongoing improvements. From our ‘quant and qual’ analysis we
understood a few things very clearly: 1. By far the biggest hurdle for every user is authentication.
2. Over 80 per cent of users come to our site from search engines, get what they want, and leave.
3. Load times make a huge difference in how long users stay on the site, and if they find what they’re looking for at all.
4. Users are always time-poor, so simple, clear and readable pages support them finding what they need quickly.
5. Less goal-oriented visitors need a browsing experience.
Authentication Customer service tickets, one of our primary KPIs, related to content access have almost disappeared since we deployed the improvements already mentioned above. This year, we plan to move away from the default WAYF page LibLynx provides, and implement individual login, register, institutional authentication
and passcode pages, clearly linked in context, to reduce user confusion. We also look forward to integrating institutional authentication with Seamless Access, and appreciate the Seamless Access group’s efforts to establish this standard.
Search engines Since almost all users find us through a search engine, almost all users don’t see our site. They see one product page, making product pages the top priority for improvements. Interviews showed the most common use loop is search engine > publisher product page > download > back to search engine > another product page > and so on, so making our pages as discoverable as possible – and making the download call-to-action as obvious as possible – were the goal. From the time of our previous platform,
our search engine traffic has doubled, and downloads have increased by almost 50 per cent, so far more users are finding and using our content than before. An in-house SEO expert was hired in March 2021, and has been actively involved in our
Spring 2022 Research Information 23
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