By Ruth Brown and Philip Cockrell

Many local governments in NZ now deliver good websites with good content.  However, a recent survey highlights that just 15% of councils have formal strategies to build e-government services. Only 25% of councils provide interactive forms, and less than 10% enable automated fulfilment. 
 
Government websites are increasingly becoming the face of government for citizens and the popularity of services like online banking means that expectations are only going to grow.
 
So here are our tips on creating a useful, usable local government website. 

Create a coherent online strategy. Which transactions should be automated? What transactions should be offered on what channel? How are you going to measure? How are you going to shift people? A strategy will help you to figure out what services to offer on what channels, and helps to ensure that you meet both the users’ and the organisation’s goals.

Pick the right services to put online. Choose popular services that people use often and that would make sense to automate. Chose services that would provide significant cost savings, or where data integrity is particularly important. (Take a look at http://www.insidepolitics.org/ to check out the most popular e-government services across the globe).

Follow a user-centred design methodology. To create a compelling online experience you need to deeply understand your site visitors through user research. Ideally any new services you put online should be designed iteratively, with regular usability testing at the beginning and throughout the process.

Make sure people can find the services. Make sure people can find the services they are seeking. Recent research from Jakob Nielsen suggests that while task success has improved impressively since 2004 as a result of a greater focus on usability; bad information architecture is still causing most of the remaining user failures. 

Follow online forms best-practice. Ensure that online forms are as quick to fill out by asking only as many questions as you need.  Ensure that you prevent errors wherever possible, and that error messages constructively help users solve their problem. (Check out the Forms That Work website for more great tips).

Great usability has never been as important as it will be in 2009; as citizens expect more and more government services to be provided online. Follow these tips to make it easier for users to get the information they need, when they need it, and in a format that they understand.