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05 Sep 06 Web Editorial Board Updates – February 2006

February 2006

A “spot check” of feedback@ala.org messages for the weeks of January 30 – February 3 and February 6 – 10 showed almost equal numbers of messages in several broad categories:

Broken or missing Links: 12

(e.g., “the graphic on this page is missing…”)

Suggestions for content: 12
(e.g., “I’d like to suggest a link to my page…”)

Suggestions for improvement: 11
(e.g., “I’m looking for a list of ALL Newberry winners…”)

User Interface problems: 13
(e.g., “I’ve requested that my password be emailed, but it never arrives…”)

Other: 8
(e.g., “I would hope that ALA would file a “Friend of the Court” letter for Google…”)

Mail to the feedback and webmaster accounts is “triaged” daily in ITTS. Where messages can be linked to a specific unit, they are sent to the web content manager for that unit by cc’ing the response to the sender. Many requests for general information are referred to the Library. Customer service issues are sent to the Member and Customer Services Center. Messages regarding problems with systems or content under ITTS control are fixed as quickly as possible and the sender is notified (if they have so requested and have given us a valid email address to which to respond).

Because these addresses (feedback and webmaster) receive so much spam, we are developing a plan to accept input through an HTML form on the website. (Many organizations – NPR is an example – have begun accepting only form-based input as a way of reducing spam.) The form will deposit message content into a database where it can be analyzed on a regular basis to help guide improvements to our systems.

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