Rethinking usa.gov
- Written by
- Ali
- Date
- 01/23/2009 2:10 p.m.
With Obama in the President’s seat now, and many new people coming into the vast executive branch, they now have an opportunity to revisit their presence on the web and explore the possibilities of getting the American people more interested and more informed about what their government is doing. The hub for all this information is a site known as usa.gov.
So what would it be like if the new administration were to rethink their presence on the web and turn usa.gov into a more open facing site–a site where people could pick and choose the content that was relevant to them and display it all in a way that was organized and appealing. At the Sunlight Foundation we decided to spend a little time thinking about these challenges and came up with a short design exercise that will hopefully get people thinking in that direction.
The Old
First of all, let’s visit the current usa.gov site to see what’s been done well and what misses the mark completely. Starting at the top of the page, the header is too cluttered. The logo doesn’t have enough space around it which makes it hard for a users eyes to focus there first, and the design itself is dated. I do agree with having the search box as the main source of navigation at the top of the page because there is so much content on usa.gov. However, I think the search options you are given–government web, images, news, maps, and usa.gov–could be eliminated by having a better search results page and a more prominent news section on the home page.
Next is the navigation below the header. It’s kind of nice to be able to navigate based on audience, but at the same time who really thinks of himself as an audience? With people changing all the time wouldn’t you want your government site to change with you instead of pigeon-holing you?
Finally, the main content of the site just seems generally random. To get to the content you’re after, it involves many clicks and there is little to draw the user’s eye to the most important content on a page.
The New
In thinking about a new structure and new design for usa.gov we had a few goals that we wanted to accomplish. They basically were: letting the user customize and personalize the content that was displayed on the site, having better structure and navigation, and just having a cleaner, more powerful overall look to the site.
I think a great way to make the government more accessible to the public is to ensure content is relevant to each person by allowing them to customize usa.gov. With a simple login, users could save information that was relevant to them instead of painfully sifting though links and then having to do it all over again when they might want the same content down the road.
Taking that idea a step further would be pulling content from other government websites. For example, if you have student loans and what to see your balance, or if you just need to know where you’re currently registered to vote, wouldn’t it be nice to see all of that content in one place? There is lots of data out there like this–medicare, social security, where your local post office is or even what kind of expenditures have been made by the federal government–that when opened up, would allow the Government to serve the public better and give the user a better experience.
For navigation, I again placed the search box front and center, and then decided on three small tabs: my government (which would have your personal government information), my community (just want it sounds like: federal community events, school data and where federal money is being spent in your area), and my elected officials (who your federal elected officials are, how to contact them, where they get their money, etc.). I think breaking things out this way makes the user feel a sense of ownership (their cognitive ownership bias coming into play) which will encourage them to come back more frequently and invest time customizing their window into the government.
Finally, I needed to organize and declutter the interface. I went with a clean look using neutral colors and pulled cues from change.gov for some continuity between government sites. This was accomplished by adding more white space, using the more primary colors (blue and red) when I needed to call attention to the content, and visualizing data so that users would be able to better understand it.
The Reveal
Click on the smaller images below to view the full comps.
Conclusion
Of course there were many challenges in doing this. For example, any personalization of a site would clearly have security and privacy concerns, especially with the government law concerning persistent cookies. But would leaving vital information like account numbers, social security numbers, addresses and full names help mitigate this concern? And technically all this data could be pulled instantly, so the combination of this data would only exist inside of a session. So with that in mind this isn’t necessarily something that the government should immediately take and implement, but will hopefully be a conversation starter about the possibilities that are out there for an overall better face to the government.
Discussion
What are Your Thoughts?
Comments have been closed on this post.
this is an incredible idea, and very simple at that. a personalized gateway to your government that aggregates your relationship to the USA in terms of money, legislation and other civic factors would be ideal
Holy crap - that's a brilliant idea, Ali. Nicely done! Obviously they need to keep you busier over there at Sunlight...
All tin-foil hats and privacy implications aside, I think this looks like a really great start to tackling the challenge of how our nation presents itself online. Of course it's tough to figure everything out in a short period of time, but this is an admirable effort.
The next step toward making something like this truly useful is working to make the site not only reactive toward the needs of the citizen, but also suggestive of ways to solve a citizen's potential problems, based on what it knows. For instance, if the system knows you have student loans (as per your example), it would be useful if the system alerted you to a new policy that allows you to take a bigger deduction on this year's taxes. It's several orders of magnitude tougher, but it would definitely showcase what the government is doing for you as a citizen.
The biggest limiting factor of your proposed design is probably the education of citizens about the structure of the government. When a user goes to usa.gov and clicks on "My Community," I'd suspect that a large number of people would expect information about local and state government issues, not solely those addressed by the federal government. Setting and meeting an expectation around what the federal government does and doesn't do is the difference between satisfying and disappointing a new visitor.
Congrats! Looking forward to more :)
Very cool ideas. I love the effort and the design. What I've been wondering lately though is about you're second paragraph's first sentence.
"So what would it be like IF the new administration were to rethink their presence on the web"
I'm kind of concerned with what if the new administration doesn't rethink its web presence? What if our government doesn't want to open up, fails to innovate or enhance our involvement and participation with it online? Who picks up the slack and how? I've only recently started following along here at SL Foundation so perhaps this is a common theme and not the place, but they're just my concerns of late.
I would have to agree with Wilkinson above about the importance of educating the visitors as to what the federal gov is really responsible for and what it really does. People will quickly learn once they are able to be more involved but initially that will be a stumbling block when creating more interactive apps or sites.
Appreciate all the hard work. Cheers.
Great start! with over 24k usg sites - all with their own look and feel, wow! this starts us down the road toward improving many things. we are 1 government but we don't act like it.
I agree that making distinctions btwn fed, state and local is important, I'd argue that in the end, most people just want to get to the task they want/need as quickly and as simply as possible.
On the topic of tasks - they seem to have been missed. "Agencies" and "Forms" are just means to get tasks done. Take "I want to get a passport" as an example.
I could go to agencies and hopefully I know that it is State that runs that program. I could go to forms and search.
or, we could drop those 2 top bars for tasks lists - one for citizens and one for businesses. The task: "I want to get a passport" than takes the citizen to a page that explains the who, what, when and where and offers the forms needed.
I'm not suggesting that forms and agencies get dropped completely, but if you focus on the task the citizen/busines wants and needs, I believe you make the site much more useful for them...and they will come back for more...more often!
just some early morning thoughts! but WOW! Thanks for putting your time into this important discussion! maybe we are entering the strategic phase of eGov vice random activites done by every program/initiaitve in government with no eye to redundancy/duplication or plain old common sense!
Great start! Thanks!
Ali
Wow! This is potentially ground-breaking.
Have you sent your proposal on to Obama?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Not going to work with current USA.gov Tech Staffs and all the federal regulations unless Obama re-do lot de-regulation. For example, this design will have hard time to pass Section 508. You will be ask Obama to give USA.gov lots of money to build this site. Completely waste tax payer money.
Regarding the use of cookies - it does make sense to update the OMB policy about persistent cookies, but in a way that maintains user privacy. Let the cookie expire after a reasonable time for example and dont store personal data in it. See www.futureofprivacy.org for some of the ideas we proposed that would enable the use of cookies and Web 2.0 tools for the benefit of users (of which you provide a great example).
@Teetime1970, having been a Section 508 tester for the government, there is nothing in this design that would prevent it from complying with the law. People always seem to think that it is much harder to implement Section 508 than it really is. Adhering to W3C web standards and developing with progressive enhancement in mind puts you 80% of the way there.
I question how many people want this much info from a govt site vs how many want to accomplish a specific task (get forms, apply for SSI, register to vote). All of the information under your tabs is fascinating, but not much use to me if I have to file for FEMA assistance.
Jess raises a good point, and that gets to the importance of surfacing content that is most relevant to people.
If someone is from an area impacted by a disaster, I'd expect a new usa.gov to surface FEMA assistance information to those people.
Likewise, if someone changes their postal code on their profile (I'm assuming that's what's driving the location-oriented content right now), the user would be prompted with links to resources for people who have recently moved, like address change forms, etc.
That's what makes it a site you find genuinely useful, and I think this design has room for those concepts.
If a federal site popped all that seemingly personalized information when I logged on, I WOULD be heading for my tin foil hat!
The last thing I want is a site of this scope and at this level identifying me as an idividual. Or making decisions about what it thinks I need or what I may consider important.
I disagree with many of your premises (it's too cluttered, one really wants to focus on the logo [?], a "dated" design is not a functional design, etc.)
Of all my searches and various uses of federal information on the Web, I've never begun at USA.gov - I've usually gone straight to the department's site: IRS (not Treasury), State for passport info, CDC (not HHS) for outbreak information, Coast Guard (not Defense or Homeland Security) for off-shore boating regs, and so on.
USA.gov is a superfluity. Is there any in-depth analysis of who actually uses it and why? Dollars to doughnuts it's accessed in the main by feds, lobbyists, contractors and potential grantees who do have cross-agency/department inquiries.
I've tried to structure the site so that quick tasks (like forms, or getting to FEMA) are easily found and easily done, but the more relevant the content on there, the more likely the individual will come back later for more information, so surfacing relevant content is certainly a key focus.
This is awesome. I would definitely like to see this type of redesign happen for usa.gov.
I agree with others that there is an information access problem to be solved by usa.gov, but I think it's orthogonal to the design and components you've shown here.
Keep up the good work.
Great work! What you describe here is very similar to something that Micah Sifry has been talking about for a while.
I actually work with USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov, developing their social media strategies. We're currently exploring ways to engage citizens online using social media to learn more about their needs and expectations from the government. Ultimately, we might discover a strong demand for the service you describe here—and I agree that USA.gov would be the place for it.
For the time being, we're gathering as much research as we can (without persistent cookies) to determine how to provide the astronomically diverse array of govt information that citizens are looking for. Commenter Rand's thinking is right on with our philosophy, that "in the end, most people just want to get to the task they want/need as quickly and as simply as possible."
In response to Mark, USA.gov gets ~8,000,000 visit each month from people looking for information about grants, passports, jobs, and other timely government information.
Also, hear hear to Jeremy's remarks on 508 compliance, "Adhering to W3C web standards and developing with progressive enhancement in mind puts you 80% of the way there." There's a lot of work to be done getting govt sites up to W3C standards.
Also, hi Brad. In case you didn't know, Brad's awesome.
Surely, Jed, you know about UK's "all in one" constituent services website?
Directgov: Public services all in one place http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm
Ali, Directgov may help you flesh out the direction you want to go with your interface.
Though I must say, I am saddened by the (inevitable) priority of economic services over actual citizen political participatory services (e.g. committee hearings, legislative calendars, and rep/senator updates from one's State House)
Regarding security issues around sessions/cookies -- real web sites are stateless, meaning they never employ cookies. Your redesign must embrace that concept, and turn this site into a veritable web site for the government. No cookies, no sessions, everything stateless and encrypted. That way, you'll have no loopholes for others to shoot for.
"real web sites are stateless"?
HTTP may be a stateless protocol, but the vast majority of web sites maintain state. Almost every web site you visit that requires authentication will store a session identifier cookie on your computer.
"That way, you'll have no loopholes for others to shoot for."
Even if cookies aren't used and a unique session identifier is appended to every local href, it would still be possible for an attacker to hijack a session.
Hey nice work and definately a control panel to your government to be proud of. I played around with exploring tax forms a while back which echoes parts of your tax contribution form. Mine was still the paper version though. http://bit.ly/OpYAs
I read the article on Ali's site and came here through the link, I really like the idea and I think it is something that usa.gov site really needs.
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