Its important to follow a user-centered design process and make it easy for citizens to find the information theyre looking for
Any confusion in the way the site is setup, its search functions or even the appearance can create large amounts of controversy between citizens and governments; as history has shown
With that said, were going to look at the best practices for creating government websites by comparing local with federal, the usability of these sites and their designs
Note: To eliminate the chance of political debates in the comments, any reference to government hierarchy will be according to the US Constitution instead of their socially accepted hierarchies
Transparency
Lets start by taking a look at two .gov websites, the White House and the Santa Monica City Council
White House (top) and Santa Monica City Council (bottom) websites
When considering the issue of transparency, which is priority #1 for most citizens when looking at a government website, the White House fails miserably. Important information is extremely hard to find and may require hours of research to get a clear understanding of whats going on inside the White House due to its lack of organization
On the other hand, the Santa Monica City Council does a decent job of providing transparency. When you first arrive to the site, its easy to find the last meeting that was held, all of the issues that were discussed, and any resolutions that occurred. Minutes are accounted for, and its even easy to find out when the next meeting will be held so that you can watch it online
Its also important to provide an easily accessible and user-friendly search. This is an area where the White House website performs well. The search box is easy to find and the results are well organized, allowing the user to put them in chronological order
The Santa Monica City Council also has an easy to find search box, but when the results are directed to Google it completely breaks the consistency of the website. Results are difficult to sort through and the information isnt always relevant to your search
So when looking at these two government websites, we can learn the proper way and the wrong way to provide transparency. By focusing on transparency on the homepage, the Santa Monica City Council website can be perceived as caring about its citizens as its primary concern. Adversely, citizens may get frustrated with the White House because their website makes it increasingly difficult to find important information
In conclusion, while its important to maintain an aesthetic appeal, its even more important to make transparency easily accessible. I see no reason why both cant be done, with the aesthetic appeal of the White House website, and transparency put on the homepage like the Santa Monica City Council website
Issues
This is a dramatically important piece of any government website. Lets start by taking a look at one that has done this well
Sen. Rand Paul website
The website of Sen. Rand Paul lays out the issues in a very cohesive manner. By simply hovering over a menu item that clearly states issues you get a nice drop-down menu with all of the issues laid out for you. This is a very simple, straightforward approach to delivering the information citizens need. Not only that, but when you choose one of the issues, the information is laid out thoroughly and in a user-friendly way. Its a very good example of what you should do when creating a government website
Now lets take a look at a government website that hasnt done this so well
Gov. Rick Perry website
Now even though the website of Gov. Rick Perry has a nice feature slider, digging deeper its actually pretty unorganized. Finding the issues where the governor stands can be a fairly daunting task. The website is more centered around mainstream news rather than focusing on information thats important to citizens, such as the issues
To summarize, when you are creating a government website, you never want to make the issues hard-to-find. Make sure these are easily accessible to help citizens make informed decisions
Mainstream Design
Its extremely important that government websites have a professional and polished look. In order for a government website to be taken seriously, as statistics have shown, it needs to look and feel mainstream. With that said, lets take a look at a government website that has plenty of mainstream appeal
Congressman Ron Paul website
A website such as Congressman Ron Pauls has this mainstream look and feel, so therefore it can be taken seriously. When a government official comes to you asking to create a website for them, its important that you understand what the mainstream looks and feels like. Blue and red are common colors that government websites like to use, especially when they are federal. A large header with the representatives photo, their name, and what position they hold is a very common practice as well. Study what mainstream government websites look and feel like, and youre almost guaranteed to get repeat customers
Now when looking at a government website that isnt so mainstream, we go back to the Santa Monica City Council
Santa Monica city Council website
This is a good example of where the notion content is king holds true as the websites bounce rate hovers around 58% in the past month, which isnt terrible. Its hard to look past the fact that this website looks like it was created in 1995, however, youll see that there is plenty of important information and its easily accessible at that. Putting the content aside though, its not a website many people will stay on for the design alone
So how important is design in a government website? Well, with the bounce rate at 58% and the average user staying on the site for 2 min., the Santa Monica City Council website shows that the importance of the design is moderate. However, it is noticeably important when you compare their website with Congressman Ron Pauls website, which has a bounce rate of around 52% and an average time on site of around 3 min., whose design follows more along the mainstream guidelines. Those numbers may not seem like a very big difference, but if you know anything about usability testing then you know they are significant
So in closing, the importance of a government website design is the reason why it is number three on the priority list. However, if you want to have repeat customers and referrals, you may want to consider understanding what government mainstream websites look and feel like. Officials want to be taken seriously through their websites design just like anyone else, so you should provide that for them
Conclusion
Spend some time going through various government websites and ask yourself the following questions
What do they look like?What is the feel that they are trying to generate?What do people complain about on the forums or do they have one?What do they have in common?What dont they have in common?Whose user data looks better and why?
These are just a few questions that you could ask yourself when studying government websites and how to create them. However, if you can nail down these three core features that I have outlined for you; transparency, issues and mainstream design, youll be well on your way to a career in creating awesome government websites.