Last week, I was talking to a friend who is a private sector usability specialist. I asked her if, like me, she is noticing that some agency websites seem to be slipping backwards, featuring agency news rather than top citizen tasks on their home pages. She said that, indeed, she and her colleagues are observing the same thing.
As this week's assignment was to spot trends in the Web 2.0 world, this caught my attention. All week I had been thinking of futurism, new tools, looking forward, forward, forward. And here it was, evidence that the web (at least the government part of it) was pushing the citizen out of the spotlight, making participation more difficult. Ironically, one can assume that agency websites that feature their own news (in lieu of highly usable layouts of citizen task links) are doing so in an effort to get the attention and validation of the citizens (who are now confused and perturbed at having to scan through news stories to find the information and services they need.)
There's nothing wrong with wanting to publicize the good work of an agency. Most government agencies do amazing work with little funds and deserve recognition from the citizens they serve. But that recognition is not going to come from a person who is unable to find the link, form, document, phone number or other information they need. But it may come from a person who finds exactly what they need -- fast, with minimal effort, who spends a few extra moments to send a message to the agency saying how well the website served them.
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