U.S. citizen use of the Internet to obtain government information increased by 50% from 2002 to 2003 according to a recent Pew Report on E-Government. A victim of their own success, government websites must now go well beyond just throwing information, products and services up on the web in their original printed formats. So do information-rich commercial websites.
Government websites must make significant changes in creating more usable web sites to accomodate the 97 million users who visit their websites annaully. Ditto for information-rich commercial websites and many non profits. This is a very formidable task. Currently the U.S. federal government alone has about 22,000 web sites. These websites are relied upon by citizens and increasingly by businesses and other government agencies.
The two edges of this sword are usability and content presentation. We think the Achilles? heel of most websites may be poorly constructed information architecture (site map). The days of just throwing information on the server are clearly over. Users are not going to want to look through an asteroid belt of hyperlinks for content. They are becoming more Internet savvy; expect a well organized website with logical arrangement of related topics. They are less willing to accept poorly organized information, walls of words that are difficult to scan or content that is extraneous and doesn?t add value. If this occurs, users will resort to more costly agency telephone call centers to meet their needs as indicated in the Pew Report on E-government. In the end though, it may be far more cost effective to aggressively fix a website so that users can help themselves 24 x 7.
Content Presentation
Website users need well written summaries of information that are easily scanned online. To meet the challenge, Government content providers must seriously rethink how their written materials are received by a web audience. The notion that users will read every word on a screen is folly. Instead they will download and print official documents. We also believe this applies equally to information rich commercial websites.
Government content managers can really enhance the user experience by summarizing complex content. Government website content is by nature wordy and long winded. The goal here is to acquaint, not overwhelm the user with the subject matter. If users than need more detail, they are free to download the entire report.
Most agencies will insist on providing the complete official version of reports and decisions online. This will not present a problem if web content managers summarize or use summaries of the reports or decisions. This doesn't necessarily mean hiring additional writers. For example, agencies can use press releases as a proxy executive summary of important long winded government reports or decisions. The press releases are usually well written and get to the heart of the issues much quicker also. The short summaries on the front page of the print and online versions of the Wall Street Journal are good examples.
What the Feds are doing
Federal government websites are moving in the right direction. Usability testing and user focus groups are almost standard operating procedures for many agencies. The federal government has also opened the Usability University. They offer courses on all aspects of usability and can help even commercial web site owners deal with issues.
Content management is another matter. The skill sets for content management are not necessarily the same as that found in IT groups. One needs good communication skills and also some knowledge of the content. Here's a good starting place for basic information on writing for the web.
Federal agencies are also looking more closely at their web audiences. They are slowly getting away from a ?one size fits all? web site. This is good for users in general and very good for businesses and citizens who have to make regular visits to agency websites to do their jobs or get information.
World is developing and people are indeed becoming Internet savvy.Blogging is also the result of this developement.
This blog on 'Usability On Government Websites-no more excuses now' is an intresting one.This is true of not only on Government websites but also on anykind of websites.You do not want to loose out on your revenue?Think about usability.
Posted by: Vidya Gopinath | May 29, 2004 at 03:27 AM