Design Secrets of the Worlds Best e Government Websites

8/9/2019 Design Secrets of the Worlds Best e Government Websites

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Design secrets of the world’s best

e-government web sites

Joshua Chambers, Editor, FutureGov Digital


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Introduction

WHAT MAKES SOMETHING

WELL DESIGNED?

In the case of cars, the elegant Jaguar E-Type could be

considered a good design - unless you need to transport

ten pigs to market.

Looks alone aren’t enough: a well-designed object must

serve its user’s purpose. And this task becomes especially

complicated in the case of government web sites. These sites

have a multiplicity of purposes: presenting government news,

allowing citizens to find the information they need, hostingtransactions and publishing datasets, amongst other tasks.

Yet while a site has many purposes, one core principle

stands out above all others: a well-designed government

web site must make it as easy as possible for citizens to find

the information and services that they need.

This is simpler to say than to do. There are a great many

ugly, clunky government web sites with poor usability. But

increasingly, there are a number of good sites across the

world that show how government portals can be simple,

usable and accessible.

These web sites aren’t always conventionally attractive.

In their quest for functionality and flexibility, many are

challenging assumptions about what a government web

site should look like.

It is reminiscent of impact made in architecture by the

design of the world-renowned Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Here the architects challenged assumptions about how

buildings should look by putting the service ducts, lifts and

pipes on the outside, and this was done to enable the building

to be completely rearranged to suit changing requirements.

Interior partitions can be moved, service lines can be clipped on

to other parts of the building - everything is flexible.

The architects wrote that “the design expresses the belief

that building should be able to change to allow people

the freedom to adjust their environment as they need”.

Above everything else, the building is intended to be “a true

expression of its purpose”.

Government web sites must follow this example - farmers

needs tractors, not E-Types.

Good designs exist to serve their users, and this guide has

chosen web sites that embody that principle. It has looked

across the world for the best designed government portals,

analysing their designs, highlighting innovative features and

explaining the techniques used to develop them. It should

prove an essential primer for anyone considering the design

of a government web portal.


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The sites included in this guide are user-friendly and simple

to navigate. They have all been highly ranked in the 2014

United Nations E-Government Survey, and some have also

been highlighted by other equivalent e-government reports

and nominated for international awards.

This guide assesses the main citizen portals run by national

governments of the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong,New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Norway and the

United States.

There are many other good e-government portals that

are not listed in this guide, and the criteria used has also

eliminated many strong agency and policy-specific sites,

such as the Philippines’ open data portal. But the sites

chosen will provide an overview of good design, and have

common features that can be emulated elsewhere.

This guide has also considered how sites can be accessible

on mobile devices, and discussed the benefits of agile

project management - a software development technique

that’s making a big difference.

Some of these portals work better in their own countries

than they would in other places. Citizens of one nation

may expect a web site to look a little different to people in

another part of the world. The important feature is that all

of them have used detailed research to serve their citizens

needs, and met their requirements as efficiently and

effectively as possible.

Introduction


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05 WORLD MAP

06 THE UNITED KINGDOM

08 AUSTRALIA

09 HONG KONG

10 NEW ZEALAND

12 SINGAPORE

13 NORWAY

14 SOUTH KOREA

15 THE UNITED STATES

17 CONCLUSION: Common functions and features

CONTENTS


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5

United States of Americahttp://www.usa.gov

Managed by: Federal CitizenInformation Centre, US GeneralServices Administration’s Office

of Citizen Services and InnovativeTechnologies

Launched: 2000

United Kingdomhttp://www.gov.uk

Managed by: Government DigitalService, Cabinet Office

Launched: 2012

Norwayhttp://www.norge.no/en/

Managed by: Agency for PublicManagement and E-Government

Launched: 2009

Singaporehttp://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/

Managed by: InfocommDevelopment Authority of Singapore

Launched: 1999, rebuilt in 2012

Australiahttp://www.australia.gov.au

Managed by: Ministry of FinanceLaunched: Being rebuilt in 2014

New Zealandhttp://www.nz.govt

Managed by: Department ofInternal Affairs

Launched: July 2014

Hong Konghttp://www.gov.hk

Managed by: Office of the GCIOLaunched: 2007

South Korea:http://www.korea.go.kr/main.doManaged by: Ministry of Security

and Public AdministrationLaunched: 2013

World Map


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Great Britain’s Gov.UK represents

a huge leap forward for the

country’s e-government efforts.

An award-winning web site

launched in 2012, it brought together all

government information into one place,

and coincided with the mandated closureof all individual agency homepages.

The site was developed by a dedicated

team, the Government Digital Service,

which was created to work outside

of traditional bureaucratic processes.

Instead, it models itself on a Silicon Valley

startup, failing fast, iterating often and

using cutting edge techniques to develop

its online services.

The results are already clear. The web site

won the prestigious Design of the Year

award from the country’s Design Museum,

and has a host of other trophies to its

name - including some just for the quality

of its content.

Equally, it has saved millions by migrating other web sites on a

single open source content management system, and started to

run complex transactional services such as voter registration.

The home page is deceptively simple, mostly thanks to the

many common features it shares with the sites profiled

before (especially its imitators in Australia and New

Zealand). So instead, this part of the guide will examine

some of the things that still set Gov.UK apart.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A STYLE GUIDE

Everything published on Gov.UK, by any agency or

department, is supposed to follow the Gov.UK style guide.

When FutureGov checked, not everything does - errant press

officers occasionally publish unreadable articles - but the

aim is laudable, and the principles behind the guide are

worth mimicking elsewhere.

The web site should have “a welcoming and reassuring tone and

aims to be a trusted and familiar resource”, the guide notes.

It contains grammatical advice to help officials write clearly,

and has a list of banned words that officials must avoid.

These include “leverage (unless in the financial sense)”;

“utilise”; “deploy”; “collaborate”; “liaise”; “streamline”; “ring

fencing” and “transforming (what are you actually doing to

change it?)”.

It also advises that writers use the

active tense, address the user as

“you” - for example, “You can contact

HMRC by phone and email” and avoid

duplicating content that already

appears on the website elsewhere.

GOOGLE IS THE HOMEPAGE

The Government Digital Service does

not believe that all of its users come

to articles through the homepage;

instead, they design individual pages to

appear prominently on search engines.

Content is vital for this; writers are

encouraged to use SEMrush.com and

Google Trends to find out which are

the most popular words for a certain

topic. For example, people in the UK

are more likely to search for holidayentitlement than annual leave,

although both are more popular than

the alternatives.

United Kingdom


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The writers of these pages

ensured that both keywords

appeared in the introduction,

subheads, chapters and

metadata descriptions. And

because holiday entitlement

is the most popular term, theyused that as the headline.

They also try to avoid using too

many capital letters, because they

are said to be between 13-18 per

cent harder for people to read.

Only the most necessary

information. tells users how

long it will take. all through the

process, explains how many

pages left (11 in total). Each asks

one question and is intuitive.

FONTS

Gov.UK has developed its own

custom font, New Transport.

The intention was to use a

very simple font that also was

distinctly British.

There was a concentration on fonts because, as the designer

of Gov.UK blogs, “by far the largest design element of GOV.

UK is typography. Many pages are just text information.

Pictures are rare. Type is important to any design but even

more so in our case.”

The design team revised the Transport font which was

launched in the 1960s for British road signs. This is designed

to be very clear, and also is familiar to the majority of the

British population. However, some elements of the font

were too bold for the internet, so the typography was

slimmed down.

> Transactional services - simplicity is key

United Kingdom

> Published under the Open Government Licence for public sector information


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Australia

> Both have prominent search options, but the new site hasmade the search bar much larger

Australia was ranked 2nd in world for e-government

and 10th for online services delivery by the 2014

UN E-Government Rankings. Over three million

people visited Australia’s e-government portal in

May this year - with traffic increasing by more than 20 per

cent over the past twelve months.

However, the federal government is not content to rest on its

laurels, and is comprehensively rebuilding its main web site -

australia.gov.au - a development that gives pointers on how

to go about designing or rebuilding an e-government portal.

The project team has conducted comprehensive user

research and testing, and has published an ‘alpha’ site to

garner more feedback as a result. It is notable that the alpha

site has markedly evolved from the current website.

In particular, there are four lessons from user testing that

Sharyn Clarkson, the project’s lead, has shared:

1 The home page should offer a broad range of topics, butnot overwhelm with mass hyperlinks

2 Keywords under topic headings increase user confidence

about which path to take

3 Design is about more than just appearance, content also

matters. The team has found that it is vital to write in

plain English (or rather, write clearly in language that

citizens use on a day to day basis)

4 Information placed on the right-hand side of a web page

is often ignored.

Other lessons can be drawn by comparing the old web site

with the new one:

The information buttons have been simplified on the new

site, and written in language that citizens will understand

There is now a prominent option for users to send feedback

to the designers

The press releases have been relegated in favour of parts of

the website that serve ordinary citizens.

Welcome text - A large, legible font greets users and

explains the purpose of the site.

No tabs on the new site - all information is immediately

visible. This makes it more accessible on mobile devices (andthe site is responsive to it adapts to any device’s screen size,

however large or small).

There isn’t any content on the right hand side of the page

following user research

“In Focus” has been removed. The text didn’t explain what

the content was, or why it was there. Instead, there is an

option for web managers to choose which campaign they

display, and allow it to speak for itself.

Popular content has been listed. This will likely be adapted

according to user research, and depending on the time of

year (ie. when the clocks change, or around public holidays).

BROADER LESSONS

The project is very much a work in progress in its early

stages of development. But it is useful to see how a country

which already has a successful e-government portal goes

about improving it.

The team are developing the site using agile project

management. This means that they constantly make small

developments to the site rather than setting everything out at

the beginning of the project (waterfall project management).

There will be a full guide to this technique later on in the guide,because most of the countries profiled have used this technique.

Some backend developments are also notable. John

Sheridan, the federal government’s Chief Technology

Officer, recently told FutureGov that his team is launching

a new content management system (CMS) that

will be used by australia.gov.au, and also can be

used by other sites across the Australian public

sector. It is an open source system, Drupal,

and the government is also negotiating shared

hosting arrangements.

Sheridan believes that creating a whole ofgovernment CMS has clear advantages: in short,

it will enable agencies to share code, modules and

applications, reducing development costs. It will also

allow for development skills to be more freely shared

across agencies, and create delivery cost savings

because multiple agencies will use a common and

scalable cloud-based platform for hosting.

The UN’s E-Government Rankings now take into

account whether a country’s departments and

agencies work together to deliver digital public

services. This work by Sheridan’s team is instructive

of how design is about more than considering

appearance: it’s about creating the conditions

in government to enable departments to work

together and create simple services for citizens.


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Gov.HK was launched in 2007, receives on average

around 61,000 visits every day - increasingly on

mobile devices - and has won a clutch of awards -

particularly for its accessibility.

The groundwork for the web site started in 2005, making it

one of the oldest web sites profiled in this guide. It still looks

modern and copes well with new technologies, despite the

iPhone launching a smartphone revolution in 2007.

Visitors to the site will immediately be surprised by its vibrancy:

it feels exciting, and not at all like a staid government web site.

Part of this is achieved through informal language - “check it

out!” - being a prominent example. The web site has clearly

been designed with Hong Kong residents in mind. As the

team explains, “the objective of the GovHK programme is to

transform the government-centric model of service delivery,

where Bureaux and Departments (B/Ds) operated within

individual silos, to a citizen-centric approach.”

That means there has been a lot of work done behind the

scenes to bring departments together and ensure that content

and services are developed with users in mind. As they put it:

“The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of public services

to citizens, enhance operational efficiency of government B/Ds

and increase the overall use of e-government services.”

This citizen-first approach has led to the creation of two

boxes on the web site that are particularly noteworthy: the

“I Want To…” and “I’m Looking For…” sections. GovHK’s user

satisfaction surveys have given strong positive responses for

these boxes on the web site.

The team says that “related government information andservices are organised around the needs of the customers

under the section of ‘I’m Looking For...’ instead of being

presented according to the organisational structure of the

government. Each service cluster seeks to serve citizens with

needs and interests in a particular subject (eg. culture, leisure

and sports, education and training, employment, transport

and motoring) or those in a particular age group (eg. residents,

business and trade, non-residents and social groups). Citizens

can intuitively and conveniently locate the information

and services required, and do not need to have in-depth

understanding of how the government is organised.”

Meanwhile, the “I Want To…” section “features effective

shortcuts for commonly sought information and services on

GovHK to help the majority of users achieve their goals with

fewer mouse clicks. The selection is based on web statistics

and the GovHK joint management Team’s understanding of

citizen’s needs.”

The web site incorporates web accessibility features that

conform to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C)

internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility

Guidelines 2.0 to the level AA (Double-A conformance),

setting a role model for other agencies to follow suit.

{draw line to MyGovHK} - This is the personalised interfacewhere users can receive the latest information and reminders

from different government departments, and enjoy one-stop

access to multiple government online services.

The weather is unpredictable in Hong Kong, so the weather

forecast function is particularly handy.

It is possible to personalise the site by changing its colour - an

unusual feature. Also citizens can send an e-card. These are

two features that make the site more fun and lively. They

probably wouldn’t work so well in other parts of the world,

but it’s a fun theme in keeping with other regional websites.

The site allows users to read it in a vast number of differentlanguages. The UN Rankings check to ensure accessibility

of an e-government portal in more than one language, but

such a wide array is very rare. It is accessible in Cantonese,

Mandarin, English, Indian, Bahasa Indonesian, Nepalese,

Tagalog, Pakistani, Thai and Vietnamese.

Hong Kong

> http://www.gov.hk/


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New Zealand’s new e-government portal launches

just as this guide goes to press, and it doesn’t look

much like a government web site at all.

It’s very simple, with a large font and no official

insignia. Indeed, it looks a little unfinished: there’s barely

anything on it. Just text, a few flashes of colour, and some

small pictures up the top of the page.

“Many of the users we spoke to right throughout this

project have reflected back to us that, most of the time, the

government sites they’ve been using are too busy, too text

heavy, the fonts are too small, it’s hard to find things and

get a clear understanding of where you are in a process,”

explains Nathan Wall, the product owner of the web site.

His team’s user testing found that people’s body language

changed on some other web sites, with them leaning

forwards as they struggling to locate the information that

they were looking for. “That said to us that we need to keepthings simple with a plain layout, slightly larger font than

you would perhaps expect to find,” he says.

Ultimately: “We want the site to be easy to use, read and

navigate, and the content should be the thing that’s the star

feature. We’re not trying to entertain users, we’re not trying

to be cutting edge and use the latest whizzbang thing that a

website can do. One of of users said: ‘The web site’s plain, but

hey, I’m not here to enjoy myself - I just want the information,’

and that resonated very strongly with the team.”

USER TESTING

User testing and feedback has been fundamental to the

redesign efforts. “We included users in the very beginning

of this project - before the product existed, even before we

started work on the alpha version of the site,” Wall explains.

To start, the team conducted focus groups, discussing

the content of the site and conducting ‘tree testing’,

where participants were set tasks to find certain pieces of

information that are further and further up ‘the tree’ of

a site’s design. They also asked users to draw their idealhome page, and list the information and features it would

have. And they looked through the emails they had received

New Zealand

> https://www.govt.nz/


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New Zealand

> https://www.govt.nz/organisations/department-of-internal-affairs/

on the old site from people struggling to find certain

information or services.

With this information they started designing the site, which

is heavily based on the UK government’s new e-government

platform, including some of the code.

Researchers then monitored the body language of userswhen they used the alpha site, and compared it to their

reaction to other governments. They wanted to make users

feel more relaxed, while on other government web sites

they would sometimes lean forwards uncomfortably when

looking for information, or seem confused.

User testing continued throughout this process, and indeed

continues after the launch of the site.

CONTENT DESIGN

One of the key findings from user testing was that content

needs to be presented in simple, plain English, Wall explains.“We don’t necessarily use the language that people are familiar

with in all cases, and maybe one of the problems we’ve had is

that there’s duplicated content in a number of places around

various government web sites - fragmented content where bits

of a particular service will be delivered by one agency and bits

of another service might be delivered by another agency.”

The team responded by created “signpost content,” he says,

which provides some content to links and helps users explainwhat they’ll find on another government site before they visit it.

THE DIRECTORY

The team are particularly proud of the directory feature on the

web site. “One of the things that users said to us very early on

was that they were often frustrating dealing with government

websites when trying to find contact details,” Wall says.

The directory shows both English and Maori names

for departments, and lists organisations by theme and

alphabetically. Each individual page describes the role of adepartment, gives contact details, and provides the names

of ministers responsible.


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Singapore’s eCitizen website was launched in 1999, and is

the first-stop gateway portal for Singapore Government’s

information and services. It was one of the first cross-

agency, citizen centric websites in the world.

The site bears a strong resemblance to a search engine,

with its simple layout and large search box. The Infocomm

Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), which was

responsible for building the site, explains that “our research

revealed that the search function is the main mode of

finding information. Hence, we have made searching for

content easy and fast on eCitizen.”

They also tinkered with the engine underneath the

bodywork. “We used predictive and intelligent search

technology so that users are presented with the most

relevant search results as they type in the keywords using

our search function. We are constantly trying different ways

to improve the search experience by understanding users’

info-gathering behaviour,” the IDA says. Its latest researchshows that 95 per cent of users have been able to find the

information they require using the search function.

As well as the prominent search option, there are a few tabs

to help users browse information. The IDA explains that

the need for this arose during user testing - the majority of

users prefer to search, but a significant minority preferred

simple tabs to help them find information.

The site also has a prominent feedback option, and an “ideas” tab

to encourage Singaporeans to engage with their government.

“We believe that we can understand our users better by listening

to them, which in turn, will render better products and services

for our users. Hence, we placed a prominent feedback button on

the portal to make sure that a user who wants to get in touch

with the team is able to do so easily. In fact, we will be launching

a crowd-sourcing campaign soon to encourage the public to co-

design the next eCitizen portal.”

The popular searches option is a thoughtful touch, placed

centrally and automatically updated according to user

interactions.

The text “I am looking for” is friendly and displays the function

of the search bar for people less familiar with web sites.

The web team have shown restraint in choosing other

government web sites to list on their homepage, choosing

just three which have been listed at the bottom of the page.

Singapore is a strongly patriotic place, so it feels appropriate for

the site to display a large and changing picture of the city. This

probably would not be so important in Western Europe.

Singapore

> http://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/Pages/default.aspx


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Norway was an early adopter of e-government, and

has set itself a target of being at the forefront of

delivering digital public services.

The OECD, a grouping of mostly rich countries,

notes that Norway has a very high level of internet

penetration, and a flourishing information society.

Successive governments have therefore been keen to

digitise public services, and provide as much information as

possible online.

The e-citizen portal is probably the most basic looking of all

those profiled in this guide, channeling the simplicity that

characterises Scandinavian design. It has key topics on the

left hand side, a friendly greeting and promise of SMS text

message in the middle, and a prominent search bar that also

allows users to narrow down services by municipality.

Its feedback option is particularly appealing: managing to beprominent without being distracting.

The site also has an excellent method of increasing the

text size.

Norway

> lines to the left hand side of the page, the feedback button and the text size option


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South Korea has been the world-leader in

e-government since 2010, and this year it retained

the top spot in the United Nations E-Government

Rankings.

The country’s web site meets the highest accessibility

standards, resizes to fit on mobile devices and has aprominent search option. But the most striking thing about

it is, well, how Korean it looks.

Icons and cartoons litter the page, even as it avoids reliance

on large images or carousels. This is very much in keeping

with the Korean Wave’s approach to all things online, even if

it is in stark contrast to Norway’s more austere Scandinavian

e-government portal.

This highlights an important truth: while there may be

common principles for functionality and usability, the

aesthetic language of cultures obviously varies greatly. As

a result it is important to root your web site design in the

visual and design language of your users.

South Korea

> http://www.korea.go.kr/main.do


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USA.Gov is the original e-government web site, and it

is still an excellent example of a citizen-facing portal.

The site looks similar to many other sites already

profiled, so this guide will focus on some of the

recent changes that have been made to it, and examine the

addition features that make it a great service for citizens.

One important thing about the site is that it’s not seen as an

end in its own right: the team behind USA.Gov stress that “we

believe in delivering information and services in ways that are

convenient for you”, so the site syncs up with social networks

and other sites to share information. It also has a prominent

button to encourage people to sign up to email alerts, rather

than expecting citizens to come to the site to find information.

Notably, it has a comprehensive directory of government

agencies, with convenient telephone numbers provided

when citizens are struggling to find information online.

Content matters on web sites, and many sites have stressed

their commitment to writing plainly. USA.Gov takes this

a step forward, with a large number of YouTube videos to

engage citizens in the work of the federal government. And

content is themed by both type and agency, with useful

icons to make it easier to identify when in a hurry.

Yet while there is a great deal of information on the web

site, it is notable how little clutter there is on the homepage.

It is deceptively simple.

The site does not have as many language options as some

others, such as Hong Kong, but its Spanish language site is

impressive. A red button links through to a similar site, but

with slightly different information displayed according to

user preferences.

ADAPTING ACCORDING TO ANALYTICS

The USA.Gov team recently redesigned its home page

according to user analytics. In 2013, 30 per cent of all

sessions on the web site included the home page - 8.67

million in total - while 79 per cent of users of the Spanish

web site GobiernoUSA.gov visited the homepage.

The team believed that their site promoted content that

the government found important, rather than content that

people were looking for. They tested this hypothesis and

subsequently made amendments.

One of the key changes was ditching the site’s carousel,

which promoted some items but took up a great deal of space

and didn’t satisfy users. Instead, the team believe that email

alerts are a better way to promote key articles or campaigns.

United States of America

> http://www.usa.gov


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United States of America

Now there is a box explaining the purpose of the site, which

is useful for new users and a box that contains anchor links

to the other sections of the page. The web site is responsive

and resizes to fit smartphone and tablet screens, so this

feature is often frequently used by people on those devices.

Source: Using Analytic to Create Change: USA.gov Usabilty

Case Study, 1 July 2014

CREATING STANDARDS THAT CAN BE APPLIEDELSEWHERE

The United States has a federal structure which limits

the power of any one agency or part of government. This

means that government cannot mandate how all of its

e-government portals will look, and leads to a great deal

of variation. However, the federal government has set out

advice for states to use when creating web sites.

Its principles for creating a visual design state that:When trying to figure out how to use the basic elements

consider:

> Unity has to do with all elements on a page visually or

conceptually appearing to belong together. Visual design

must strike a balance between unity and variety to avoid

a dull or overwhelming design.

> Gestalt, in visual design, helps users perceive the overall

design as opposed to individual elements. If the design

elements are arranged properly, the Gestalt of the overall

design will be very clear.

> Space is “defined when something is placed in it”,according to Alex White in his book, The Elements of

Graphic Design. Incorporating space into a design helps

reduce noise, increase readability, and/or create illusion.

White space is an important part of your layout strategy.

> Hierarchy shows the difference in significance between

items. Designers often create hierarchies through

different font sizes, colours, and placement on the page.

Usually, items at the top are perceived as most important.

> Balance creates the perception that there is equal

distribution. This does not always imply that there is

symmetry.

> Contrast focuses on making items stand out by

emphasising differences in size, colour, direction, and

other characteristics.

> Scale identifies a range of sizes; it creates interest and

depth by demonstrating how each item relates to each

other based on size.

> Dominance focuses on having one element as the focal

point and others being subordinate. This is often done

through scaling and contrasting based on size, colour,

position, shape, etc.

> Similarity refers to creating continuity throughout a

design without direct duplication. Similarity is used to

make pieces work together over an interface and helpusers learn the interface quicker.

Source: http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/visual-

design.html

It also notes that, for there to be a meaningful and valuable

user experience, information must be:

> Useful: Your content should be original and fulfill a need

> Usable: Site must be easy to use

> Desirable: Image, identity, brand, and other design

elements are used to evoke emotion and appreciation

> Findable: Content needs to be navigable and locatable

onsite and offsite

> Accessible: Content needs to be accessible to people with

disabilities

> Credible: Users must trust and believe what you tell them

Source: http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-

experience.html


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The world’s best

e-government web sites

have a number of common

design features. All are

sprinting to serve their citizens

better, so a great deal of imitation

is going to be likely, and should beapplauded. It is the same in most

areas of practical design: take

cycling, even the very best racing

bikes share more similarities than

differences, and adjustments are

simply made to accommodate the

rider’s individual preferences.

Here the most important

commonalities of all well-designed

e-government web sites:

1 Search - large, prominentsearch bars are a crucial part

of any user’s interaction with

e-government web sites. User

testing in the UK, Singapore, US

and elsewhere has all shown the importance of allowing

users to search for information. No matter how well

designed a homepage, there will always be something

that a designer does not anticipate or cannot incorporate.

2 Simplicity - there is a notable trend towards reducing the

number of links on a homepage, removing carousels, and

only linking to the most popular topics.

3 Themes - Content itself matters, not just the appearance of

a web site. The best web sites theme their content according

to user desires, rather than by departmental structures.

4 Icons, not images - most web sites are removing their

images. This makes it quicker for them to load on

mobile devices, and makes it easier for users to find

the information that they’re looking for. No-one comes

to an e-government web site to be entertained, they

just need information. Icons can help users spot useful

information, though, and in some cases add character to

the web site to make it more in keeping with other sites

that users are likely to view (ie. South Korea).

5 Responsive design - good e-government web sites need

to be accessible on mobile devices. Not all of the sites

listed above currently are, but Singapore and Hong Kong

are looking to improve this. There is a trend towards

building one web site, which adapts to fit a number of

screen sizes, rather than putting resources into updating

a web site for desktop users, and a mobile app and tablet

app for people on the move.

6 Multiple languages - the UN E-Government rankings judge

web portals on whether they’re available in more than one

language. All of the web sites above are, and Hong Kong

leads the pack, with its site available in ten languages.

Ultimately, these web sites are the best in the world

because they are designed to be practical, simple, quick and

adaptable. Not all government web sites are; comparisons

of some other government web sites with the above

portals is a bit like comparing a Penny Farthing with a

modern racing bike. But through imitation and iteration,governments around the world can create web sites that

are incredibly easy to use. You might say they’ll be as easy as

riding a bike.

Conclusion: Six Building Blocks of E-Government Success

Documents

Design Secrets of the Worlds Best e Government Websites