Annex
The National Archives
SUMMARY OF CUSTOMER RESEARCH DATA—THE
IMPACT OF THE GROWTH IN OUR ONLINE SERVICES ON THE DEMOGRAPHIC
PROFILE OF OUR CUSTOMERS
NOTES
These figures are based on a series of surveys
carried out for online and onsite service development.
GENDER
The gender mix has remained consistent over
the last 4-5 years across all channels. Generally, men are more
likely to visit onsite and women are more likely to use online;
— c.60% of our onsite customers are
men, 40% are female; and
— c.45% of our online customers are
men and 55% are female.
AGE PROFILE
We have put a huge volume of family history
material online. As a result, the percentage of older people (45
years and above) using our website has increased from 58.7% to
68.3%. We have also taken steps to promote our services to school
pupils and a generally younger audience. For our onsite services,
the percentage of older people visiting our reading rooms has
reduced from 76.7% to 66.1%. However, because of the nature of
our material, there remains a significantly high proportion of
usage of the retired population, particularly those researching
their family history.
ETHNIC ORIGIN
There has been no significant changes in the
ethnic origin of those who visit Kew or those who visit our website.
We find this disappointing as we have taken very active steps
to attract a diverse audience. Our Moving Here project celebrates
the diversity of Britain's population and provides pointers to
archive sources of interest to people whose families came from
overseas, and has received significant praise from the communities
involved. The profile remains strongly white at 92%. Approximately,
75% of online users are based in the UK. These figures remain
consistent for both onsite and online customers over the last
four to five years.
OTHER INTERESTING
INFORMATION
— Our most recent survey of onsite
customers at Kew reveals that 77% of those who visit our reading
rooms say that they had visited our website before their visit
to; order a document in advance, pre-register for a readers ticket
or download/view a document/record.
— 68% of visitors said that they used
a laptop PC, wireless internet connection or a digital camera
during their visit.
— 70% said that they had shopped on
the Internet.
— This suggests that many of our onsite
users are indeed confident in the use of technology.
— In 2002 the most popular subject
on our website was military history at 44%. By 2006, this had
changed to family history at 61%.
The National Archives—Comparison
of Personal Visits and Online Users
|
| Year | Personal visits
| | Web users
| |
|
| 2001-02 | 264,378
| | 0,000 |
|
| 2002-03 | 300,961
| | 4,200,000
| |
| 2003-04 | 281,906
| | 6,500,000
| |
| 2004-05 | 284,604
| | 11,000,000
| |
| 2005-06 | 262,599
| | 12,000,000
| Changes to website structure reduced duplication
|
| 2006-07 | 240,000
| Forecast | 15,000,000
| Forecast |
|
|
