Redesigning the Government
With Obama in the President’s seat now, and therefore many new people coming into the government, they now have an opportunity to revisit their presence on the web and explore the possibilities of getting the American people more interested and more informed about what their government is doing. At the Sunlight Foundation we decided to spend a little time thinking about these challenges and came up with a short design exercise that will hopefully get people thinking in that direction.
usa.gov
I started this exercise with USA.gov which is supposed to be the face of our nation on the web, but when you visit the site it comes off as cliche, disorganized and confusing. So what would it be like if the new administration were to rethink their presence on the web and turn usa.gov into a more open facing site–a site where people could pick and choose the content that was relevant to them and display it all in a way that was organized and appealing. Read more about this on my original post at the Sunlight Labs blog.
fec.gov
The Federal Election Commission is the organization that oversees federal elections – manages results, oversees donation and fundraising law compliance, etc. Fec.gov is a site that is near and dear to people here at the Sunlight Foundation. We get a lot of our data from this source and knowing where people in power are getting their money drives our work, so at least for us it was logically the best next site for us to take on. Read more about this on my original post at the Sunlight Labs blog.
Hopefully I will be doing more of these in the coming months. Look for them here or over at the Labs blog and let me know what you think.
10 Comments
Eric Holmes 02/10 10:53am
Nice! The USA.gov design is beautiful. Better usability on government sites will definitely help with transparency.
David Mason 02/14 11:00pm
I stumbled across the face lift of the usa.gov and was super impressed with the design, so user friendly, and polished. Glad found your blog :)
RakDesign 05/19 11:49am
cool article, your designs work much better, goverment sites are often over complication and usually leave the majority feeling overwhelmed.
Harumph! 06/03 10:27am
Yes, they certainly ARE re-designing the government and spending your kids’ inheritance while they’re at it.
You can’t spend and tax your way out of a recession, folks, basic Economics 101.
Alistair 06/26 10:27am
Excellent articile, your designs definately are lot clearier and aesthically pleasing than the current ones. It would certainly be the right step to getting the younger generation interested in goverment more.
SJL Web Design 06/27 4:21pm
Incredible article, I think your re-designs work exceptionally well, they are so much more cleaner and user orientated than the current ones.
I wonder when/if the USA government are going to do something about their cluttered sites.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/ isn’t the best example as it is hardly well designed, but atleast it offers some usability (and it was built in wordpress!).
Benjamin 08/25 9:06am
Brilliantly done! I believe that this is very much needed over the entire federal and state levels! And I think that you have hit it right on the head.
I seriously hope that changes such as these will soon be implemented.
Felin neu 01/14 3:31pm
This thread seems to be evergreen. I have now bookmarked it. Thanks for posting, very helpful article.
Ash Value 01/29 5:54am
I found your blog by making research to improve design and navigation layout of site and honestly - I am impressed, very helpful article
m65 03/01 9:14pm
haha i heard whitehouse.gov might be a social network site