Indigenous Watchdog holds a vast amount of information relating to 30 critical Indigenous issues that we track and report on every day. We have added a number of new features to speed up your access to content. We have broadened the search results to include the entire Indigenous Watchdog site – organized for easy, quick and efficient navigation to help you find the information you are looking for.
This “Search” transformation is the initial phase of a multi-pronged effort to unlock the rich content that makes Indigenous Watchdog a go-to site for relevant, current content curated from eleven credible sources.
What’s New?
The following image shows what you will now see whenever you type something in the Search Bar on the right of the Navigation Bar at the top of the page:
1. Using the keyword search (#1) as your search results base, you may now further refine your target results by Sub-category (#3). The shaded number identifies the total number of search result “hits” your keyword search produces within each sub-category. The search results from your initial search and from each of the “Refine Your Search” selections will be presented as a list (#6) in the shaded area.
2. In the “Refine Your Search” section there is a new toggle button that will show/hide search results that contain links to attachments including PDF files that can sometimes be hard to locate. This toggle view will speed up your ability to find them.
3. The results of your keyword(s) search are now organized into Sub-categories that can be selected individually or in multiples to expand your search
4. Everything that is searchable on the Indigenous Watchdog site has been assigned a Result Type (#4). The results of your keyword search (#6) will reveal which kinds of content (#4) have matched your search.
- Update:
- Call to Action: Positive actions taken by stakeholders to advance reconciliation
- Perspectives: Original article content created and posted by Indigenous Watchdog
Search Results ca be sorted by “newest” to “oldest”
5. By default, results are sorted by “Most recent” but the sort order can be by Date (Newest first) or Date (Oldest first), depending on your needs.
Descriptive snapshot of results
6. Search result items have been streamlined to include more information so you can more easily decide how to proceed: Originating Sub-category (# 3: Missing Children and Burial Information), Result Type (#4: Updates: Current Problems), Title (Family of man in residential…), Date (2024/09/09), and a summary excerpt. Words matching your search keywords are also highlighted to draw your attention.
7. If a Search result item (#6) contains links to an attachment including a PDF they will be listed right in the Search result (#7).
Predefined Suggested Content for Hot Topics
8. The Search page has new shortcut links to “hot topic issues”. These links reveal important content with a single click.
Search the Subcategory You Are In
9. A new mini-search (#9) pop-up is now available on every sub-category page that will appear as you scroll down the page without interfering with your user experience of that page. This allows you to enter search criteria at any point in your browsing experience at your convenience to speed up a search within a current Subcategory.
Breadcrumbs on Every Page
10. Every website page now has back-link navigation aids (breadcrumbs) that will make it easier to move back up the content heirarchy thus reducing friction getting around the Indigenous Watchdog website structure.
Additional Features Coming Soon
11. Searching PDF files is coming to Search (#11). PDF Documents linked in articles often contain extremely valuable information but can be hard to locate (or even re-locate). Indigenous Watchdog will now use your keywords to search inside linked PDFs so that these important resources don’t miss your consideration.
This is just the beginning.
Next Steps:
- A pop-up User Survey will be launched in the next few weeks to ask users specific questions about their over-all user experience relating to how they use Indigenous Watchdog:
- What works and what doesn’t?
- What can we do to make your experience more effective, more engaging?
- What can be improved to make your experience more responsive to your specific needs?
- etc.
- Based on the analysis of the survey results, technical enhancements to the Indigenous Watchdog site to optimize and enhance the over-all user experience in line with identified user needs
- Further enhancement to the above Search results page based on identified improvements as well as the analysis of the user survey results
Indigenous Watchdog would like especially to thank Algolia who developed the search engine platform on the Indigenous Watchdog site to optimize and enhance the entire user search experience.