Best practice for signposting services

Digital signposting helps people find services they need online without having to search in multiple different places. It is often easier to find where people can order a pizza or buy some clothes than finding services they require such as mental health support or group activities. 

 

You could have a signposting service within your website or your organisation may use signposting websites to post about your own services. Either way the tips below will help improve your signposting processes and content.

 

These six areas of best practice stem from a recent report written by New Philanthropy Capital that was put together through research and experiments done by four youth signposting services and a number of young people. The research focuses on signposting youth services, though they are just as relevant for any kind of signposting services for other users too.

 

 

Six areas of best practice for signposting services

 

 

Listen to the needs of your users

 

User research is something every organisation should be doing on a regular basis, asking your users what they like or don’t like about your service and changes that may be required.

 

For signposting you can ask them what kind of words they use to search, what information they want to find before signing up, and any follow up information they might expect.

 

 

Make signposting services accessible

 

Think about the accessibility of your signposting services and explore the following:

• Digital accessibility ensuring the website or app meets WCAG guidelines
• Language accessibility that includes translation services or using inclusive language
• Service accessibility that includes the process people might book onto the service and considers how an individual accesses physical services.

Considering all three of these areas in how you use or promote a service can ensure you are considering the needs of all. User research can help gain feedback on each of these areas.

 

 

Collect and analyse data to better understand the needs of users

 

There is a rich amount of data that can be collected and analysed to better understand users of a service. Data might include information about the services people search for and any gaps in provision. It is often better to collect less data and make sure you use the findings to make substantive changes rather than looking at everything and feeling too overwhelmed.

 

 

Develop clear data quality processes and protocols

 

Developing clear data quality processes and protocols is vital to ensure you’re providing useful, relevant, and up-to-date information. Services regularly change their opening times, availability, contact information and more, so ensuring this information if up to date is vital.

 

Signposting organisations should have clear processes in place to ensure the services and information they are providing is correct and a genuine service. As a service provider, you might want to consider putting a regular time in your diary to check your listings in various places to guarantee everything is up to date.

 

 

Build strong partnerships to work closely with service providers

 

Collaborative working benefits all areas of work. Research found building strong partnerships can benefit the signposting organisations, service providers, and the service users. This might include sharing service updates across multiple signposting organisations in one go or sharing advancements in technology that could improve the user experience for all.

 

Collaboration can be hard when organisations are competing for funding, but the more the sector works together on key infrastructure areas such as signposting the better the opportunities and learnings will be, which in turn helps the service users.

 

 

Build wider data infrastructure to share learning across sectors

 

The final area of good practice demonstrated the importance of collecting and analysing data.

 

If that data was then shared across the sector, it could have even wider benefits. Whether that is information for service providers to better understand the gaps in provision shown by searches on signposting sites, or services sharing the needs they are finding from users so signposting organisations can add additional services to their listings.

 

Shared information could also show wider sector demands and emerging needs. If you are short on time, start at the top with listening to your user needs. This is always the most valuable way to know what is working and what isn’t for your signposting services.