A service evaluation of the EQUATOR Network's website for disseminating reporting guidelines

The EQUATOR Network website plays a central role in the dissemination and uptake of reporting guidelines. Despite limited funding, it remains the authoritative resource for reporting guidelines. Thousands of medical journals refer authors to it. For many researchers, it provides their first exposure to reporting guidelines, and for most reporting guideline development groups it serves as their primary dissemination mechanism beyond publication. Yet the website's performance has never been evaluated. We aimed to assess how effectively the EQUATOR Network website achieves its mission of disseminating reporting guidelines.

We performed a website service evaluation using Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and an online user survey.

The website attracts a large and global audience. Half of visitors actively engage with the website, which, although typical for websites of its kind, suggests there are opportunities to modernise, improve clarity, and improve usability. Survey responses described the website as confusing or cluttered. Although the website catalogues hundreds of reporting guidelines, a small subset receive disproportionately high traffic, and some users reported difficulty locating the guidance they needed.

Despite its limited resources, the EQUATOR Network website has built a substantial global audience and achieves moderate engagement rates, typical for websites of its age and type. However, with modest investment, clear opportunities exist to strengthen its usability and impact.