A booklet can contain every useful detail and still make a visitor work too hard to find one answer. Testing the contents page is a quick way to see whether the organisation makes sense beyond the editing team.
Give a draft to somebody who has not assembled it. Ask them to find three things: the contact for a query, the description of one activity, and the date range the booklet covers. Let them look without explaining where you placed the answers.
- They choose the wrong heading.
- The label may describe your internal process rather than the reader’s question.
- They find the section but keep searching.
- The information inside may need a clearer subheading or contact label.
- They cannot tell whether it is current.
- The edition or coverage dates need a more visible place.
Record where the search became difficult. One person’s experience is not a complete accessibility assessment, but it can reveal a specific problem worth correcting.
Repeat the task after editing, using the actual printed page numbers. A contents page checked against an earlier layout can become wrong when an introduction or photograph shifts the pages.
The test succeeds when the reader finds the answer, not when they admire the booklet.