This document discusses findability and citizen-centered design for government websites. It emphasizes the importance of understanding citizen needs and tasks, organizing information to match those needs through user research and usability testing, and designing navigation and information architecture accordingly. Key recommendations include identifying user groups, defining common tasks, simplifying content and navigation structures, and providing multiple access points to information.

1. Findability
Eileen Quam | Meredith Anderson

2. What are people looking for?
Jobs
Help with mortgage foreclosure
Education information
How do I …

3. What are people doing?
Email
Shopping
News
Weather
Health information
…
Employment search

4. In www.state.mn.us?
Main topics hit in the last month:
Education
Health
Population

5. What are they finding?
Sections of state websites on those
topics
Some linking to sites outside of
www.state.mn.us
Some empty topic categories (eek)

6. What do we know about citizens?
Some people browse and some people
search
Many people can’t spell or can’t type or
both
Ask a Librarian shows users don’t know
the difference between:
federal / state / local government
Most Ask a Librarian queries are for help
on business and work

8. Problem: They Need Information
What is driving the citizen’s information
need now?
Task or transaction
Information or data
Simply a question
Where does the citizen want to wind up?
Why is the citizen going there?
Who is seeking this information?
How do we generalize this?

9. Information architecture
to help citizens find stuff
Purpose: Organizing information on
a web site
Designing structure, content,
labeling and categories of
information
Designing navigation and search
systems
Goal: To organize information that is
findable, manageable and usable

10. Inspiration
Look at similar sites for ideas – or
not so similar
Remember what you are looking
for:
Appropriate themes
Taxonomies that fit
Good terminology
Navigational ease
Design ideas

11. Citizen-Centered Design
It’s the core of findability
Tools: Needs assessment studies,
card sorts, surveys, response
solicitation and usability studies
Rate this page responses
Analytics like WebTrends data
Intuition about other people (Blink)
See www.usability.gov

12. Getting ready to design for
findability
Business case specific to the web
site, including its context
Categorize/characterize users
Inventory your site’s content and
tasks
Define the tasks that bring users to
your site to connect users and
content
Now we know what, where, why
and who - but not how - yet

13. Designing for Findability
To design navigation, get lots of
people into a room with post-it
notes, or do a card sort
Is navigation design based on:
Topics
User-type
Tasks
Other group like services or forms?
(Remember your users)

14. Pare it down
Simplify, simplify, simplify
Too many choices are confusing
3-click rule – debunked!

15. Design Principles for Findability
Be consistent: in concepts, labels,
order, and placement on page
Keep terms and links short, with
keyword first
Choose browseable topics that match
Subject-oriented
User-oriented
Task, etc.

16. Examples
Audience orientation
www.usa.gov
Topic orientation
www.renewable.state.mn.us
Task orientation
www.careeronestop.org

20. More Design Principles
Provide multiple approaches to same
information
Corporate underpants

21. Know-it-alls
We don’t want to go here:
“I know exactly who my audience
is.”
“I know what my audience needs.”
“They’re finding everything they
need.”
“We don’t have time for a needs
assessment.”

22. Designs that don’t work
Everyone’s favorite – the bad stuff
How can we fix these?

24. MinnesotaWorks.net
Left-hand Navigation:
Apprenticeships
Best Picks
Edit Account Information
Internships
Jobs Applied for Online
Links to Other Sites
[more…]

25. Left nav continued
Resumes
Saved Search
Search by Job ID
Search for Jobs
Volunteer Opportunities
Who Recruited Me?

27. Article Health and Fitness
www.articlehealthandfitness.com
Left-hand listing of 71 topics
Pretty good A-Z Index of topics
Not so easy to navigate
Click to Diseases leads to undifferentiated
listing of articles on variety of diseases –
no organization
Organize at all levels, not just home page

30. Hot trends for success
Citizen-centered design
Identify and involve all stakeholders
Design structure, content, labeling,
navigation and categories of information
Best sites are clear, concise, and
consistent
Simplify, simplify, simplify

31. Accessibility Key for Screen Shots
• USA.gov http://www.usa.gov
• Renewable Minnesota http://www.renewable.state.mn.us
• CareerOneStop http://www.careeronestop.org
• MinnesotaWorks http://www.minnesotaworks.net
• No navigation:
http://www.tradeshop.com/master/custom.shtml
• Millions hate the new Facebook profile:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?
gid=27233634858
• Meredith’s Facebook profile
• Where do I start? http://egov.ocgov.com/portal/site/ocgov/
• Bad site from site of bad sites:
http://www.planetofthegeeks.com/trek/beertrek/rules.php
• Bad site of the day: http://www.jeffersonmillwork.com/
• Web site of bad sites: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/