How to find and use your 'Was this page helpful' feedback
- Jess Pietsch (Unlicensed)
- Hayley Stockall (Unlicensed)
- Marcella Marino
This guide covers how to find the ‘Was this page helpful?’ customer satisfaction data and a process for tracking and implementing the feedback.
This data can reveal what website users think about website content and whether anything needs to be updated or changed.
The dashboards mentioned in this guide only display data for websites that use the content.vic.gov.au content management system.
On this page
What is ‘Was this page helpful?’ feedback
Most Victorian Government webpages have a feedback form at the bottom of the webpage, above the footer menu. The form consists of the question ‘Was this page helpful?’ with the option to answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
There is an optional comments field that can be filled in as well.
For webpages built in the content.vic.gov.au content management system (CMS), this form is added by default.
How to find the feedback
For webpages built in the content.vic.gov.au CMS, this data is fed through to two analytics dashboards.
vic.gov.au – GA4 Dashboard
In this dashboard you can find basic data about the feedback collected for vic.gov.au site-sections, such as:
the total number of results
the percentage of Yes and No results
whether there’s been an increase or decrease in Yes and No results.
For detailed information about this dashboard and how to understand the data, check out the user guide Page 3: Feedback – Was this page helpful?.
Sentiment analysis dashboard
The sentiment analysis dashboard de-identifies and displays the data and feedback, as well as applying a sentiment analysis to the comments.
Use this dashboard to filter to a specific time frame as well as webpages, sites and/or site sections.
You can find:
the total amount of feedback received
the percentage of responses that were Yes or No
the percentage of responses with comments attached
an overall sentiment rating of the comments
overall percentages of positive and negative comments
the specific comments for each webpage, with personal and identifiable information redacted.
You can also export a copy of the data for your own records.
Collecting and implementing the feedback
On the sentiment analysis dashboard you need to apply some filters in order to look at specific feedback.
In the top right corner you can choose the date range you want to look at.
In the top blue menu bar you can:
filter by site(s) and/or site-section(s)
filter by specific URLs
filter by specific categories, such as UX concerns. (Note: These categories are applied via an algorithm and may not be 100% accurate.)
If you work across more than one site/site section, you might prefer to filter and export the results separately for each individual site/site section, as this could make it easier to track specific trends and issues.
Once you’ve applied your filters, the overview page will give you some helpful statistics, such as a graph showing the dates you received feedback, and a pie chart showing the split of Yes and No responses as percentages. If you hover over the pie chart, you will also see the total number of these responses.
To find a more granular breakdown of the positive and negative feedback, click on the pages in the far-left sidebar:
By Site – Positive
By Site – Negative
On these pages you can see how many responses were received per site and/or per webpage, the percentage of Yes vs No responses and an overall sentiment score, which indicates how strongly negative or positive the comments received were and is calculated by an algorithm.
The 2 tables at the bottom of each page (above the glossary) show the keywords that the dashboard has considered positive or negative, as well as providing the full comment, with personal or identifying information redacted.
Exporting a copy of the data
You can download a PDF copy of the entire dashboard or specific pages:
In the top right corner of the dashboard, click on the down arrow next to the Share button.
Click Download report.
Choose whether to download all pages or select pages, as well as some custom options such as adding a password to the report.
You can also export data from the tables into a spreadsheet. We recommend doing this for the positive and negative comment tables. To export, click on the three vertical dots icon (the tooltip when hovering over it says More) and then click on Export. You’ll be given the options to name the spreadsheet and choose whether to export as a CSV file or Google Sheets file.
Using the data
A good way to keep track of the feedback and record when you’ve actioned any constructive criticism is to create a master spreadsheet for this data.
You should export the positive and negative comments on a regular basis, such as monthly, and copy and paste these into the spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet could also be shared with colleagues who work on the same website content.
Look through the comments and highlight any that give actionable feedback, such as fixing a typo or broken hyperlink. Set aside time to find these webpages in the CMS and fix the issues.
You should also look for any negative comments that are less specific but still flagging a potential issue, such as the content being confusing, too long, or not providing the details the person was looking for. The positive comments may also provide some constructive criticism.
Based on trends in your feedback, you may need to:
check the reading level and rewrite the content to be more straightforward
restructure the content to move important information to the top of the webpage
use different keywords in the webpage title, introduction and summary text to accurately address what the content is about
provide clearer navigation or hyperlinks to related webpages or call-to-action prompts
check what external hyperlinks are leading website users to the webpage and whether these are appropriate or giving enough context.
Each time you follow this process, check whether the negative comments are still repeating similar feedback trends. This could flag the need for a wider content audit or a restructure of your information architecture.
Measuring content performance
You should look at the feedback data and comments at least monthly, or more regularly if you have published high-profile or popular new content. The comments can provide valuable feedback on what content is doing well and what content needs improving.
The ideal benchmark for the content is at least 70% ‘Yes’ responses for each webpage.
If the content is not meeting this benchmark, you should check whether the comments can provide any reasons why this is the case, and make changes to the content to address the feedback.
If the content is controversial, check to see whether most responses are based on an issue with the usability and readability of the content, or whether the negativity is about the specific subject matter. If it’s the latter, you may be unable to meet the benchmark but should keep a record of these comments as your evidence for why.
You should also use the positive feedback to find examples of what’s working well that can inform any content design decisions you make for new webpages.
You might like to use examples of both kinds of feedback as examples of how you’re regularly maintaining and improving your content, and include this in any reporting for your business unit.
To read more best-practice guidance and find out other data you could track, check out the Measure how content performs digital guide.