Return to Web Managers Advisory Steering Committee HomePage (3IVN)
Web Managers Advisory Council Draft Action Plan -- March 27, 2007 (3IUQ)
1) Vision: Our vision for the future of government websites is that citizens will be able to: (3IUR)
- Get what they want, quickly (3IUS)
- Accomplish the most commonly used tasks efficiently and effectively (3IUT)
- Contact someone if they need help (3IUU)
- Go to one place to find what they want from the government (3IUV)
- Know that they’re getting trusted, accurate information that doesn’t duplicate or contradict information on another government website (3IUW)
Comments on Vision (3IYF)
2) Goals: We recognize it will take a lot of work and resources to make our vision a reality. To get us started, we’ve chosen one primary goal: (3IUX)
- Identify and improve the tasks that are most critical to citizens so they can find them easily and accomplish them effectively on the Web. (3IUY)
Why This Goal? We’ve made this our first goal because focusing on Top Tasks will help our community focus on the most important parts of their website first. It recognizes that we don’t have the resources right now to re-write every webpage or do a complete overhaul of all government websites. This will help us prioritize and stay focused on improving the content that will have the biggest impact on serving the public. (3IUZ)
Once we’ve achieved success with the Top Tasks, we can adopt those successful strategies to the next tier of important tasks. (3IV0)
Focusing on Top Tasks doesn’t mean we won’t pursue other worthy goals – like using new media, creating more opportunities for public involvement, creating content in re-usable formats, etc. But those activities should be pursued as THE MEANS for achieving the Primary Goal of improving Top Tasks. For example, an agency shouldn’t develop podcasts simply for the sake of using new media. However, if they’ve identified “applying for financial aid” as one of their top tasks, then it would be beneficial for them to consider whether using podcasts or other social media would help the public accomplish that task. (3IV1)
Comments on Goals (3IYC)
3) Initiatives: To implement our goals, we – as a web manager community – are going to: (3IV2)
A: Identify top tasks (3IV9)
- Develop standard approach to identify Top Tasks, both across government and for individual agencies (3IVA)
- Share data about top tasks (3IVB)
- Identify tasks that citizens need but that aren’t currently available online (3IV3)
B: Evaluate how well agencies deliver top tasks (3IV4)
- Do baseline usability testing of the Top Tasks (3IVC)
- Do “scorecard” of the public’s ability to complete top tasks across government, including comparisons with the private sector (3IV5)
C: Communicate importance of top tasks (3IVD)
- Develop communication strategy to promote importance of top tasks among top management and key stakeholders (3IVE)
- Identify barriers to accomplishing top tasks (3IVF)
D: Look for barriers to achieving tasks (3IVG)
- Look at internal business processes (3IVH)
- Partner with different levels of government (3IVI)
- Collaborate to link related content (3IVJ)
- Share findings with community (3IVK)
E: Follow industry best practices to improve top tasks (3IV6)
F: Use new media to improve access to top tasks (3IV6)
Comments on Initiatives (3IYD)
4) Obstacles to overcome: We recognize that achieving this goal will mean significant change in the way we do business now. (3IV7)
- To identify top tasks, we need to look not only at the tasks we’re offering now but also at tasks that we aren’t offering. That means we’ve got to find a way to ask citizens what they’d like to be able to do, that they can’t do now. (3IVL)
- To improve our top tasks, we may need additional resources to streamline the steps, to merge or connect related tasks across agencies, etc. (3IVM)
- To feature the top tasks, we will need to strip away “clutter” that makes it hard for citizens to find those tasks on our websites, etc. (3IV8)