Government Technology - October 2008 - (Page 18)

Designed to Impress “The thing that makes it so successful is it’s relatively straightforward. It’s easy to understand, so it’s very accessible,” said Peter Alexander, branch manager of the Online Service Point Branch of the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). Australia.gov.au is designed for usability and the lynchpin of its appeal is how the links to legions of government programs are arranged on pages. The home page features a menu of subjects to browse and a row of of this original content comprises text describing where links will take users. Enhanced Service Delivery But if, like Alexander said, Australia.gov .au is merely at the Web portal 1.0 stage, what will take it to version 2.0 and beyond? “In terms of functions, we’re building accounts for citizens, so they can come to the site and build an Australia.gov account, which then personalizes their view of government,” he said. The accounts would let users filter in and my income is in [a certain] range,’ we could give them more information specific to them,” Alexander said. Another enhancement AGIMO has planned is more online forms for electronic service delivery, which is outlined in Australia’s 2006 e-Government Strategy, a strategic plan of IT projects to complete by 2010. On the back end, this means different agencies will use the same form-building technology and templates, and consequently the same standard for online document creation. They’ll let users have a 1 The U.N.’s E-Government Survey cited the Australia portal’s links to major job search, business and citizen-information sites as a reason the portal ranked so highly compared to other national portals. 2 2 Users can browse a plethora of services and information thanks to the 1 simple site design that places browsable subjects on prime screen real estate roughly around the top center. 3 3 The “Information For” section breaks programs down by user type. Shoppers, business owners, travelers, seniors, job seekers and numerous other sorts of browsers can ﬁnd what they need. more consistent experience when applying for services from agency to agency. The government decided on these enhancements to address citizen concerns after conducting multiple surveys — about one a year since at least 2004 — to gauge Australians’ satisfaction with e-government. AGIMO also plans to aggressively market the portal’s availability to Australians, similar to how the United States has marketed USA.gov. “We have never had an individual marketing campaign for it,” he said. “We tend to still advertise individual government programs.” Alexander said AGIMO is deciding how to market the site over the next year. But even without aggressive marketing, Alexander estimates that Australia.gov.au has grown in popularity. He said the number of visitors increased from around 250,000 a month two years ago to more than 600,000 a month today. tabbed links for more specific needs. Users who click on the “Info For” tab, can find information and services arranged by user type. Information obtained by the 60 Second Survey includes users’ connection speeds, opinions on various portal aspects and how they think the site could improve. But even with all of these features, Alexander is modest about the site’s offerings and works to improve it. “What we’ve got at the moment with Australia.gov, we would phrase it as a Web portal 1.0; it’s just a linking site that people can come to as a starting point and then go throughout the federal government agencies and get their services,” he said. He estimates that about 20 percent of Australia.gov.au’s content is original. Much OC OCT_08 the services and let government agencies they prefer track their past actions. This account through the main site could potentially then be linked to accounts users have with specific government agencies. And if Alexander and his team have their way, this would all be facilitated by a single sign-on feature so a user won’t have to log on repeatedly for each account. These improvements would be aided in part by a more sophisticated service directory. Say an account holder is a plumber from Sydney who is married with two children: Australia.gov.au could present him or her with services that might fit that particular profile. “But then if they told us more information, such as, ‘I have three children, I’m divorced, 18 18 http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://www.USA.gov http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://Australia.gov.au http://www.govtech.com

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Government Technology - October 2008 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Letters Cover Stories: Border Crossing The Australian E-Connection Easy Rider Northern Exposure Technology on the Cheap Ditching the Desktop Heightening the Experience Pipe Dream Falling Between the Cracks Come Together, Right Now... It's a ... Car? Digital State of the Art Spectrum Products Two Cents signal:noise

Government Technology - October 2008

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