How do we Redesign FCC.gov?
- Written by
- Clay Johnson
- Date
- 07/31/2009 12:38 p.m.
Our next goal in our redesigning the government series is to do the FCC website. Check it out. According to archive.org, the last time the site underwent a redesign was in August/September of 2001. The site is long overdue for an overhaul. When we started kicking around the idea of doing the FCC website, we talked to a few folks about it and we think that unlike any other mock redesign we've done, we're going to open the process and have community help drive this.
Our usual process is to invent some kind of narrative theme for a redesign. With the FEC our goal was to demonstrate how the agency could build a web presence that used its data to shed light on the political process. With USA.gov it was thinking about personalization of government. With the Supreme Court it was about making data that is locked up inside the organization readable and presentable to all. So the first question is: how should we approach the FCC?
And yes, we know the current website is outdated-- and Ali can make it look great, but in the end there's more to it than that: what does www.fcc.gov need to do? Who does it need to serve? How should it serve them? Why?
Let us know, and we'll keep you updated as we do our mock redesign. We'll probably solicit comments for about a week before figuring out what our next steps are.
Discussion
What are Your Thoughts?
Comments have been closed on this post.
As a site reporters and other researchers might use, it seems like a pretty good site. Perhaps focus on the data portability side.
Publish the data as linked data; in a well-formed, Web addressable, text format like XML, JSON, and CSV; don't mix it with the HTML and JavaScript used to render FEC pages
Create pathways into the data based on what people care about or expect to find when they search the data; what are the popular searches?
Publish the calendar in iCal
Publish an API
DOH! FCC, not FEC. I guess I have to rethink the question, but same advice probably applies.
Among other things, RSS feeds for ECFS, EDOCS, and headlines.
Very interesting! The FCC website should prove to be quite a challenge in that it covers a wide range of subjects, with many obscure, technical and arcane issues. Still, worth a shot! Good luck! jim radio Austin Airwaves
One of the problems with govt. websites in general is that they have to serve such different audiences. How do you design one site that serves telecom lawyers, broadcast engineers, economics researchers, consumer advocates, and people who want to complain about obscenity on the teevee? Some folks will use it once in their lives, some will use it every day.
Two ideas that come to mind are a profile-capable site (myFCC.gov) and a multidimensional categorization schema (search by docket number, radio station call letters, technology type, state/city, "hot issue", etc.)
One thing that doesn't work too well now is that you can't browse by reading the press releases, then go to more detail on that issue. The press releases should all have working links to topic pages.
But maybe before this gets solved it'd be nice to simplify the FCC's way of doing business. They have a very complex set of identification codes for all the things they're working on, which are unnecessarily abstruse. And I hate to say it, but perhaps the way the bureaus are organized makes things hard to find as well.
Anyway, that's it for now -- good luck.
One simple suggestion is that when fling comments, you should be offered an option to have all other comments filed on the same proceeding sent to you via RSS or e-mail. Even better would be filters on those filings so that, for instance, you can just be sent comments that mention "disability." And all those who file on any proceeding should be required - in the header - to indicate on whose behalf the comments are being filed. It's of no use to consumers to read a list of law firms who filed when what is desired is a list of companies, trade associations and special interests who have filed.
Thanks to Sunlight for looking at improving the FCC web site. We at the FCC are excited to see your input and do not want to steer the conversation, but we do want to let you know we are particularly interested in your input on the information framework/organization for the site, how you would use data we would make machine readable (apps?), and any areas where we should over-invest in quality content (e.g. a site for parents and kids?). Thanks, Steven VanRoekel - Managing Director, FCC
Hi Steven, I am glad that you are interested in redesigning the FCC website. I've said on my podcast, http://theweeklyspin.com that I think that the FCC's current site is the worst in the government.
As Jim Tobias puts it, you have a really hard job to cater both to insiders, and newbies. In addition, what you do is one of the most complex and technical jobs in the government.
The first suggestion I had was to tell me what's going on. I visited your site and I see that you already do that! Good job!
Perhaps divide up the homepage by the different areas you cover (TV, cell phones).
Take common tasks. How could I read and or comment on the iPhone/Google Voice issue? This seems to be hot issue; it should be on the homepage. Also the issue page needs to bring together all of the different parts - comments given, place for citizens to comment, a brief overview of the process.
How could I check the license on my high school's radio station (WHHS)? I search it, but only find old documents. Why does the search engine not cover everything. If I enter a station call sign - it should bring me to a page on that station with ALL information ever related to that station (license, recent correspondence, signal map)
It's about time. The good news is that the FCC is keen to change their site as well. To assist we (Free Press) filed this list of recommendations to rebuild FCC.gov:
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=7019933516
There's more to be done and we'd be happy to help Sunlight as this effort moves forward.
Best,
Tim
Thanks for the opportunity to give input to the new fcc.gov design: The most important questions to ask your customers and get input on are 1) What do you come to fcc.gov website to do (or would like to do at fcc.gov) and 2) How would you describe yourself and the context of how you use the fcc.gov site (e.g., I'm telecommunications analyst for a mutual fund; I'm a college professor teaching communications law to grad students, etc.) As you receive input, why don't you create and share publically your Usability Requirements? See for more info on how to do this: http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/usability/cisur.shtml
Finally, I tried to send these comments to you privately but the contact me link in your message doesn't take me to your email address - or anyone else's at the Sunlight Foundation (I've had trouble getting contact info from SF before - ironically!) Thx, NB
I'll second what Larry Goldberg said about comments on proceedings -- the content should be well-indexed and completely searchable, and the commenter's "true" identity should be transparent. It wouldn't be hard to build an app that had all the necessary fields, and allowed people to edit comments right on the page.
The same should be true of informal complaints, with privacy protections. I'd like to know a lot more about the patterns of complaints for each product/service the FCC regulates -- how many people have trouble with hearing aids and phones, for example.
Speaking of complaints, we all know there are cases of astroturf or orchestrated complaining, where identical emails show up about some issue. This messes up the statistics and cheapens the public discourse, but it could be argued that cut-and-paste participation is better than no participation. Here's a challenge to the AI text analysis experts: identical text is easy to spot, but can you create an app that carefully distinguishes "mostly boilerplate" from "mostly original"?
If the goal is to increase the volume of complaints and comments -- and I think it should be -- we should make sure that the new volume is even more manageable by FCC staff. We should pay as much attention to the internal face of all this public communication, so that staffers can access, process, and monitor it all both more effectively and more productively.
The FCC Managing Director asked, "how you would use data we would make machine readable". I publish the only RSS feed of FCC Experimental Radio Service applications. These apps are often the first public revealing of development-stage wireless technologies.
The FCC does not publish this data in easily "mashable" form, so creating this feed was more difficult than it would otherwise be.
Please ensure that the new FCC public data services are not relegated only to high-profile topics like broadband, but include all routine and non-routine applications for devices and stations pending before the Office of Engineering & Technology, as well as all applications and supporting correspondence (not merely sparse technical data) for International Broadcast Stations as filed with the International Bureau.
Much of the apparent complexity of the FCC website stems from too many custom and incompatible systems and workflows. These different systems, exposed as they are on FCC.gov without any layer of indirection, standardization or simplification, make the FCC's activities seem far more complex than they are. Individuals visiting FCC.gov confront the full complexity of the FCC's legacy systems and get lost in a world of jargon and specialized systems unable to navigate, submit, search, or review information without the aid of specialists (e.g., lawyers).
To get a feel for FCC's similar, but incompatible systems, look at the list at http://bit.ly/gYvlY. Here the FCC states without apology, "The FCC maintains several internet-based systems that allow the public to submit and/or review different types of filings related to FCC proceedings, rulemakings, licensing, authorizations, complaints, tariffs, and official forms."
Imagine that on Flickr: "Flickr maintains several internet-based image viewers and commenting systems that allow users to submit and/or review different types of photos of people, landscapes, still lives, artistic, screenshots, professional, and amateur images." Or imagine Craigslist if every category of goods and services involved submitting, searching, and reviewing in a different system. Or shopping on Amazon.
Reducing the complexity of FCC.gov means creating a standardized and simplified workflow that gets 80% or more of the filing processes into a generic end-user experience (at least on the website). It would be great for the Sunlight Labs to model what that a more generic and standardized filing process might look like. This situation is not all that different than the one individual investors found themselves in prior to the rise of EDGAR and Internet-based trading, or that travelers found themselves in prior to Sabre and online booking when information was dispersed in so many different systems and formats that even basic business activities required so much specialized knowledge it could only be done through agents (e.g., brokers and travel agents).
More is needed to improve FCC.gov than a better index to the existing, function-specific filing systems. The solution to making FCC.gov easier to navigate and use is in large part identifying and creating a standardized web-experiences for filings and other FCC activities. All filings have a standard workflow anyway, even across different businesses; it is merely the information, reviewers, and official legal forms that differ. Such standardization would go a long way in reducing the complexity of FCC.gov, not to mention increase the agency's efficiency and reduce organizations' legal fees.