Find out the results of our website survey
We conducted a 6-week survey of our main council website in Feb/March 2025. This was promoted in the following locations:
From this, we received 232 online responses and 5 printed responses.
Approximately 1 in 3 people (37%) said they visit our site less than monthly, while 1 in 4 visit monthly (23%) and weekly (25%)
What topics people visit
The most popular topic was bins and recycling, with 68% of respondents saying they visited this section in the past year. The next most popular topics were:
Most people said they had visited to find something (40%). The other reasons were:
Some respondents identified their needs as ‘other’. Reasons included requesting new recycling containers, registering for a slot at the tip, to check recycling dates, to check account. However, others may have categorised these reasons under the main options. For example, checking something may have been categorised as ‘finding something’.
Over half (52%) of respondents stated that they had an account. 8% had never heard of ‘My Torbay’
Among those who had an account, 2 in 3 (66%) could do what they needed. Approximately 1 in 4 (24%) could not do what they needed and 1 in 5 (20%) could only do some things.
The most common ways people found out information were our website, social media and email bulletins. This reflects the methods we used to publicise this survey, so may not give a true picture for this question.
The next series of questions asked people to rate our site between 1 and 5 for the following:
Clear language 3.6 / 5
Accuracy of information 3.4 / 5
Appearance 3.2 / 5
Finding information easily 3.0 / 5
Completing tasks easily 3.0 / 5
Comments from respondents at the end of the survey give more specific insights to explain these ratings. Common themes that emerged include:
In the next section of the survey, we asked the respondents about themselves, so we could understand their needs.
Most respondents (90%) described themselves as either extremely or somewhat confident using the internet.
The majority (94%) used their own device to access the intranet.
Respondents also revealed they used multiple device types
Overall, mobile use accounted for 43% of devices. However, our google analytics show 56% of users access the site using a mobile.
19% of respondents considered themselves to have a disability. Of these:
The most common device settings this group have changed to help with accessibility were
Regarding assistive technology, 9% stated they used an adaptive keyboard, 9% used dictation or voice recognition software and 2% used a screen reader.
Nearly half this group (48%) had not changed any of the settings on their devices to help them access digital content. The main reason for this was because they felt they were fine as they were. However, 1 in 5 (20%) had not changed the settings because they didn’t know how, or didn’t know that it was possible.
The age range of respondents was not reflective of the age range of Torbay as a whole. The highest proportion of respondents were between 65 and 74 (28%). This is twice as much as the percentage of people living in Torbay among this age range (14%). Conversely, people aged 16 to 44 made up 15% of respondents, but account for 28% of the Torbay population.
The survey responses will feed into our current website review project and help form the action plan. We will continue to involve website users in this process, through the website users group. This will include user testing, virtual development sessions and design feedback. Sign up now to join the website users group and receive regular updates on this topic.