Content evaluation checklist

Check for currency and accuracy 

Work with nominated content owners and/or subject experts to review your content for currency and accuracy. This should include checking any technical terms, policy intent and legal requirements.

Questions to ask 

• Is this content located elsewhere on your site or on another agency’s site? If so, consider removing it. 
• Is this content the main source of information? If so, does it need to be updated? 
• What content is missing? 
• Are the links working and relevant? 
• Are you publishing content or documents that are owned by a third party and on their website? If so, you should link to that site rather than duplicate the content on your site. 

Check content quality 

Quality content should support a user need when the user interacts with government.

Ask a content expert to evaluate the quality of each content item in the audit spreadsheet. They should assess your content against the following criteria.

Usability 

• Who is the intended user of the content? 
• Does your content meet a user need? 
• Does the content outline what the user needs to know? 
• Does the content have a clear path to a call-to-action? 
• Is the user directed through the information with scannable subheadings? 
• Are links informative? 
• Can the user find or do what they need to do? 
• Is this the best way to present the information? (For example, is the content outlining a process? If so, would the content be more usable in another form, such as a calculator?) 
• Have you analysed and actioned your user feedback? 

Findability 

• Does the navigation help the user find information? 
• Are the information architecture labels easy to understand? 
• Is the meta description written as a call-to-action using relevant keywords? 
• Is the information found using the site’s search? 
• Is the information found using a search engine? 
• Is the content in an HTML format? 
• Is the content written using phrases and words your users are likely to use? 
• Does this content link off to credible and authoritative online sources? 
• Is each heading length optimised for search? 

Readability 

• Does the first sentence help users to decide if the page is relevant? 
• Is the content written in plain English? 
• Is the content written in active voice? 
• Is a consistent tone used across the website? 
• What is the readability level of each page? You can use a readability tool to estimate this. 

Accessibility 

Ensure content meets WCAG 2.0 requirements for content authors.

• Is the content written so that all users can read and understand it? Have you thought about people who speak English as a second, third or fourth language? 
• Are the headings structured? 
• Have you provided meaningful alt text for each image? 
• Have you provided closed captions, audio descriptions or transcripts for videos? 
• Can you turn off closed captions in videos? 
• Does the link text identify the purpose of the link? 
• Is the content responsive to mobile devices? 
• Do you need documents or PDF formats or can they be condensed into web page content? 
• If you do need documents or PDF formats, are they made accessible and accompanied by an HTML extract or description? 
• Are any images decorative? If so, consider removing them. 
• Are data tables formatted using table headers and captions?