The recently-released federal Digital Government Strategy lays out many promising initiatives that will, no doubt, improve the technology and infrastructure behind online services and, thus, enhance customer experience. Many talented people worked hard to develop this Strategy, and they will continue to work hard on its implementation. But we still don’t have a clear plan for cleaning up the mess that is the existing content of government websites…those pages and pages of words, many that are outdated, redundant, poorly written (and, thus, unusable) or just plain unnecessary. It’s the haystack customers have to sort through to find what they really want.
It’s time to get out the pitchforks and do the dirty work. Here’s what I would do.
1. Establish archive sites. Require every agency to establish archives.(agency name).gov as a separate website for obsolete, redundant, and little-used content that is still important for researchers, students, historians, and interested citizens. You don’t need an archives site for every website – one (or just a few) for the agency should do the trick. Examples of content for archives sites are documentation about obsolete programs; speeches, press releases, reports, management plans, testimony, and other materials from past administrations; past budget materials; and other content required by the National Archives and Records Administration or agency records policies. Set up the archives site so that customers can find it from the live site, but its content will not turn up in searches of the live site (and confuse customers). Brand every page on the archives site so customers know this content is no longer maintained and is available only for reference purposes. Use archives.hud.gov as a prototype.
2. Review statistics. Require every agency to review the statistics for every page on every one of their websites, for the past 6 months. Create 3 lists:
- List 1: Pages that are viewed an average of 100 times or more every month
- List 2: Pages that are viewed an average of 11-99 times every month
- List 3: Pages that have been viewed an average of 10 times or less, every month
If you don’t have a statistics package that gives you views per page, get one now!
3: Review content on List 3 (because it should be the easiest). Task content owners (subject matter experts) to decide and act accordingly:
- Still needed – work with web managers to update and rewrite to make more usable. Improve navigation and optimize for searches.
- Not needed, but still useful as reference or to maintain transparency – move to the archives site.
- Not needed at all. Remove it from the server. Be sure to meet NARA and agency records retention plans.
4: Do the same things for List 2.
Sounds like a great plan to me! What prompted you to come up with this solution? Mere frustration with using .gov sites?
Chris – I managed HUD’s website for 10 years and co-chaired the Federal Web Managers Council until I retired in 2005. We all knew then there were too many websites and too much content to make it easy for our customers to find what they want. The problem is getting your arms around a solution that works. This is one solution that Sam Gallagher, at HUD, came up with and implemented; and it works really well. So why not replicate it across government? It may not be a panacea, but it surely would help the situation.
Great plan……but, just our local drive is daunting. Kind of like dishes in the sink. People put things out there but never go back and clean them up or move them to an archival area. Our scanning folder gets jammed up with items, some with PII. The item gets scanned and emailed or whatever, then it should be deleted, but no one ever goes back and does the clean up. There is a commons folder that many people put things in for others to access. This is supposed to be a temporary place, but the person who put it there and the person who picked it up, neither takes responsibility for removing the items.
It begins with each person takin responsibility for the data they put out there on a drive or website. I think that has to become part of the culture.
How do you suggest local government websites are cleaned accordingly — when local government has much less disposable money, less resources, less dedicated staff, etc. In communities with a 1-person IT department, what’s the best way of (re)viewing website statistics? Ask high school computer club students? Form a tech advisory committee of interested residents? Thoughts?
Ari – all your suggestions are good. Colleges are a great resource – offer an unpaid internship or get a class to do the analysis as a class project. Put a blurb on your website and see if you can get a volunteer from the citizens (great to get them involved!). What about the GovLoop community? Post a “help wanted” note here – you might get an offer from a caring colleague. I honestly think there’s low cost/no cost help everywhere if you’re creative.
And if you can’t do it in 6 months, do it in a year. The point is to start now. Look at your stats (and there are low cost stats packages available), start with content that’s never/seldom used and either get rid of it or fix it, set reasonable (but consistent) goals for each month, and do it. It’s the right thing to do.