A status page is a public-facing tool that gives users an overview of your website or application’s current and historical performance. They are a great way to inform your end-users about system incidents or maintenance updates and build trust.
The ideal status page will show a responsive and easy-to-use branded dashboard on desktop and mobile devices. It should also offer a variety of features and integrations.
Visibility
Keeping your end users updated on the status of their systems is essential for several reasons. It can lower support costs and increase customer trust.
A good IT status page should be visible and convenient for end-users, so they don’t feel a lack of transparency. That means the page should be easy to understand, presenting the status in a clear format with colors representing current system availability.
It’s also helpful to show end-users what maintenance schedules are in place, so they can plan accordingly and minimize effects on their productivity during scheduled events.
It is beneficial when it comes to critical outages. Viewing the historical record of outages can help calm nerves and build confidence.
Ideally, the status page should be easy to navigate, including helpful contact information and ticket submission links. It will allow end-users to self-serve, saving your organization time and money.
Convenience
Ease of use is critical to a sound IT status page. It should be simple to navigate and understand, enabling users to self-serve and solve issues before they require support.
Some status page examples communicate their system status with minimal text and use clear iconography to convey information quickly and easily.
A good IT status page should also be mobile-friendly and easy to access on any device, including tablets and phones. It makes it easier for customers to receive notifications about incidents and check their system’s uptime from anywhere they are. It also eliminates the need for customers to go directly to a company’s support page and submit a ticket. It can save businesses time and money and increase customer trust.
Conciseness
A good IT status page should be concise and precise, offering the most relevant information to end-users without overdoing it. It is essential because it helps inform your users and mitigates frustration with your organization.
Another great thing to look for on a status page is metrics, including real-time performance and historical data. These can help your users understand how stable your system is over time, which is a great way to alleviate any potential questions about reliability or resiliency.
There is a status page that relies on its uptime metric to show its end-users that they can trust the resiliency of its software. Offering this data on the status page can help alleviate customers’ concerns about the resiliency of their applications.
There are also ones that take an interesting approach to their status page. They allow users to see both production and sandbox statuses. It is an uncommon feature among other status pages and can help to prevent a flood of support tickets from occurring during maintenance.
Interactivity
You can turn it into an interactive activity to get people to notice something. In this way, the message is not only more understandable and involved, but also it can encourage learning.
It is beneficial for information necessary to your users, such as the status of a critical service or system. By using interactivity, you can turn your IT status page into an active part of the user experience and make them feel like they are participating.
A good IT status page keeps your end-users in the loop and gives them confidence that your team is working to fix the problem. It improves customer service and reduces the need for repeat IT support tickets. It also helps you to build trust with your users, which can be an essential asset in the future.
Timeliness
Status pages are a great way to provide end-users with critical information about your organization’s infrastructure and can act as an initial indicator for support teams. By funneling employees to a private status page for crucial information like maintenance schedules, service outages, and infrastructure updates, companies can help cut down on helpdesk ticket volume.
Timeliness is one of the most important aspects of any good IT status page. It can be as simple as keeping up with the most recent maintenance and outages or creating a schedule for regularly posting new status updates so users stay aware of the situation. Some examples of the status page are well-designed and elegant, making it easy for visitors to understand the overall system performance of the platform. It also uses custom icons to represent each system status, making it easier for users to identify which system is experiencing downtime or an outage. Likewise, the University of Nebraska’s status page displays scheduled downtime and operational system statuses with simple communications throughout.
