Surfers who use the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) internet website are being recruited to help make it even better.

About 26,000 people visit the website every month and it is important that we supply all the things they want in a format they can use easily

Stuart Willis - YDNPA

The Authority’s Website Administrator Stuart Willis is hoping to set up a focus group that will steer the development of the site – at www.yorkshiredales.org.uk – over the coming year.

“About 26,000 people visit the website every month and it is important that we supply all the things they want in a format they can use easily,” he said.

“The aim of the focus group will be to provide a captive audience of general internet users ranging from novices to experts that can be consulted about possible developments to our website and ways of improving it.

“It will involve a minimal time commitment from members but it will be of maximum use to me in developing the website.

“It will involve occasionally answering questions and giving opinions, either by email or via the website, about specific things on the site ranging from the overall design of the pages and the navigation used to move between them to the creation of new services and whether they would use them.”

So far, 43 users have signed up for the focus group after completing an annual on-line survey on the website. Anyone else who would like to join is asked to contact Stuart by emailing him on stuart.willis@yorkshiredale.org.uk.

The survey showed that 79 per cent of people found what they were looking for easily and 81 per cent thought the overall design of the site was excellent or good.

On a scale of one to six, 72 per cent said that their satisfaction rating with the site was five or six and 74 per cent answered five or six when asked how well they thought the site showed what was special about the Yorkshire Dales.

Suggestions for improvement included improving the navigation, particularly from the home page, more pictures, audio and video footage of the Yorkshire Dales and more interactive features.

Stuart said: “Clearly there are some good results from the survey, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully, with the help of ideas and opinions from the focus group, we can make the site even better.”