“The Top Tasks research has shown us that people buy a car the same way throughout Europe, and that the same things matter to them. We learned that people could not find what they were looking for on our website. Due to a very complex product set up, which is common in automotive, we have been struggling for years on how best to present our products to the customers. Through the specific Top Tasks methodology, we finally found a way that allows customers to fulfil their tasks on the Toyota website. A real breakthrough for the industry!”
Tineke Vanmaele, Manager, Digital Experience, Toyota

At Cisco, we’ve wholeheartedly adopted the “top task management” approach in most of what we do for web and mobile. It has made a tremendous difference in everything from our support experiences to how we support navigation across our sites for tasks related to buying, product evaluation, consumption, and more. More

“What do our customers come to do on our site? Great question. It’s surprising how many different answers/opinions you’ll hear. At Microsoft, I have used Top Tasks with incredible success—often increasing conversion rates by more than 100% while improving customer satisfaction. Use Top Tasks and get real results, fast.”
Peter Horsman, Senior Digital Marketing Lead, Microsoft Cloud + AI

Top Tasks Management is a quick, useful method that has proven itself once and again for stakeholders in Google Search. The pattern that emerges every single time is nothing but powerful and amazing.
Tomer Sharon, Google Search

We used this system successfully for three software divisions at IBM. As you may imagine, each was a complex business with 100s of products and 1000s of opinions of “What people want.” This survey was a great leveler. We gathered over 500 randomized responses per software division (with geographical spread) and quickly determined the top tasks from a list of about 90. More

“The Top Tasks methodology delivers an unparalleled glimpse into the minds of customers, even for organizations that are skeptical of user research. Top Tasks combines both quantitative and qualitative insights to provide a holistic view of your audience. The outcomes are clear. And your products improve because of them.”
Nyckie Pineau, Principal Designer, NetApp

“Top Tasks are the basis for everything we do in our work on Canada.ca.  We adopted the framework early on when developing Canada.ca’s IA and navigation so we could optimize findability.  We use Top Tasks to decide which content problems to tackle first, and for benchmarking usability performance. It’s really given us a clear model for how to prioritize where we direct our energy in managing Canada.ca.”
Peter Smith, Chief, Canada.ca Product Design, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

“A major Top Tasks survey of the European Commission’s online presence was carried out in 2014. The goal of the survey was to find out the main reasons why people want to interact with our organization. It was in 24 languages and ran across 28 countries.”
European Commission

“We’ve been working to formulate a process for government to define Top Tasks alongside Gerry McGovern, an expert on digital user experience and developer of the Top Tasks management model.”
Katie Taylor, User Research Lead, GOV.UK

“Organizing and optimizing our Canada Revenue Agency site by Top Tasks instead of by audience has shown an increase in findability by 93% and task success by 115%.”
Jonathan Rath, Manager, Web Services Section, Canada Revenue Agency

“The Top Task approach has helped us to understand what is important to our patients and service users and start designing digital services that meet their needs. It provides the data and evidence needed to make informed decisions that benefit users.”
Ben Cloney, HSE, Acting Head of Digital, Health Service Executive (HSE), Ireland

We had the privilege of working with Customer Carewords at the OECD, an evidence-based international organisation known mostly for its comparable statistics. We did the Customer Satisfaction Index, Top Task Identification, Task Performance Indicator, and the Search Performance Indicator. Without the evidence we collected from our external audiences, we would never have been able to get a real grasp of their needs, nor convince our internal stakeholders (e.g. policy analysts, statisticians, communications staff) to let go of their organisational egos and opinions.
Cynthia Coutu, Head of Internet Unit, OECD

“The Top Tasks survey that we undertook with Gerry McGovern revealed interesting insights into what users expect from our website. As a result, we made changes and launched new services to meet our users’ needs. The survey results became a valuable management tool for decisions on the long-term direction of the website, and it helped create a common understanding of what the website should and should not be.”
Andrea Stojanov, Principal Communications Specialist, Asian Development Bank

We at the Business Wales online team manage and maintain the web site business.wales.gov.uk – communicating practical information to general and specialist business audiences. We’re also responsible for a range of social media channels (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, with more to be launched soon), and an e-newsletter. More

As a result of focusing on people’s top tasks (what people really need) and helping them to do what they needed to do as quickly and easily as possible, the Norwegian Cancer Society has seen a:

• 70% increase in one-time donations
• 88% increase in monthly donors registered
• 164% increase in members registered
• 348% increase in incoming links
• 80% increase in visitors

Norwegian Cancer Society case study
Webinar presentation (WMV: 25 MB: 50 minutes)

The Woodland Trust is the UK’s largest woodland conservation organization with 500,000 members and supporters and more than 1,000 woodland sites, covering over 26,000 hectares, all over the UK. A well functioning modern website was already in place but the organisation wanted to go further and make the website a fundamental part of realising its strategic goals of increasing membership and donations. More

In a project to develop a new online solution for all Norwegian hospitals, we used the Top Tasks approach. The results from top task survey were unambiguous. We discovered the most important questions our users needed us to answer was: “What happens before, during and after treatment.”
More