Skip to main content
Skip table of contents

Measuring success

One of our 10 working principles is ‘We make evidence-based recommendations and decisions’. That’s why we’ve built measurement into our digital lifecycle.

When we’re creating, operating or planning products and services, we can use those measurements - to check whether we’re on the right path, and to point towards where we can go next.

Why we measure

There are a range of motivations for measuring the success of our digital delivery:

  • To optimise and improve our products and services once they’re live

  • To learn how users feel about them. An in-depth understanding of audience needs (especially as needs change), based on both qualitative and quantitative user data, is fundamental to successful digital performance​

  • To help make decisions about their future - which products and services to keep live and possibly improve, and which ones to decommission

  • To learn lessons we can apply to other work

  • To inform future planning by the business

  • To monitor improvement of our digital performance in support of the organisation’s strategic aims

  • To test hypotheses and challenge assumptions

  • And crucially, to understand how our products and services contribute to Shelter’s strategic goals. The golden thread runs through everything we do. Every service or product we launch, no matter how small, needs to connect to Shelter’s biggest goals in our efforts to end the housing emergency

How do we measure?

In Shelter’s devolved content manager model, teams that own content also own the responsibility for measuring and reporting its success.

The Digital Analytics team in Central Digital supports content managers to that aim, using a range of tools for tracking, capturing feedback, quantifying, comparing and evaluating data. The analytics team provides content managers with customised, self-serve dashboards, so they're able to monitor the performance of their products or services and flag reports with their business owners.

The analytics team also manages our Digital Report Centre, providing all Shelter staff with a wide range of activity-specific reports.

Image of a screen from Shelter's Digital Report Centre

The Content Manager’s Report gives our content managers and business owners
up-to-date, filterable data on performance and trends

Using outside data

When we design and develop our products and services, it’s valuable for us to inform choices with data and analysis from reliable external sources.

We may draw on datasets that evaluate industry trends - in technology performance and usage, and in audience preferences. Which web browsers are growing in use? Which audience segments are using emerging mobile functionality? What types of fundraising technology are trending upward?

External data also plays an important role in validating hypotheses during product development, letting us cross-reference our own data.


How we understand our audiences

The roles that drive our devolved model

Shelter’s business ownership role in practice


Contact us about the digital framework

Have a question or comment? Found a bug? Or maybe you’d like to contribute to the framework? Use our contact form to get in touch.

JavaScript errors detected

Please note, these errors can depend on your browser setup.

If this problem persists, please contact our support.