Since the redesigned Fingate site launched in summer 2020, FMS has been continuously working to optimize the site to meet our users' needs. The site, which garners over 20,000 pageviews each month, supports the Stanford community in quickly locating and understanding policies, processes and the needed information to perform financial activities efficiently, accurately and within compliance. While the redesign did include a focus on providing a more modern look and feel to our users, the primary goals were, and continue to be, ensuring that users can search and navigate through the site efficiently and effectively. In addition, content is being updated on a frequent basis, refined and improved to better meet your needs. As a continuation of those goals, FMS has recently implemented some changes to Fingate search functionality that will improve the user experience. These changes are a result of a deep dive study of the site analytics, user experience polls and direct feedback from the site's audience.
Improved Navigation and Layout Changes Launched October 2022
| Enhancement | Sample Screenshot |
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| How To and Reporting pages have been updated to display any associated content to the right hand of the page content, rather than at the top. |
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Next steps
We’re analyzing the October 2021 Client Satisfaction Survey and reaching out to respondents who indicated that they would be open to providing feedback and ideas on how we might improve the Fingate site. Groups of users will be invited to participate in online interviews and focus groups over the coming months to help guide these improvements. If you ever have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send your feedback to @email.
The changes to search functionality include:
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Enhancements launched on August 12
The second round of search enhancements included more improvements focused on usability and to provide a more holistic search experience:
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- Consolidated search: Also in the full-screen search modal, the radio buttons to limit your search to just the site or the newsroom have been removed. The search engine will now display results containing items such as announcements and newsletters. This change is a result of feedback that users did not know which radio button to choose, or, in some cases, had not been aware that there was a differentiation in the content type they were searching for.
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Completed Enhancements
| Goal | Action Plan |
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| Improve search capability | (Completed on March 2, 2022) The Fingate team updated the configurations of the Fingate search engine to index keywords from all sections of the site. Previously the search was limited to scan specific sections of a page. Search queries now produce more relevant matches that are provided within the search results by relevance. This is a significant improvement that has fixed the issue of certain keywords that produced zero results. Thanks to continued feedback from website users, ongoing improvements to the search engine continue through analyzing the search metrics and fine tuning the search configurations. Users can share examples of search queries that did not produce relevant results to inform future updates by filling out this feedback form. |
| Reduce pop-ups and "density" of the site | (Completed - February 2022) Feedback from users indicated a desire for minimal interruptions to the experience. Notably, the pop-up tours through the site were not adding value for many users and were, instead, detracting from the experience. As a result, the pop-up tours have been disabled. |
| Improve site speed and responsiveness | (Completed - January 2022) The Fingate team constantly monitors site speed and discovered some opportunities to reduce loading time for scripts running during each user session. With some code refinements and bug fixes, site speed has been significantly improved, especially when navigating through the homepage. |
