Nielsen's at it again...

Again stressing usability, Jakob Nielsen’s article (under recommended readings on the syllabus) made some great points that can increase traffic on government websites. Its funny, we spend so much class time devoted to content and online strategic persuasion, but if no one goes to our site and sees it, then who cares? You could have the best site in cyberspace, but if your mom is the only one leaving you messages, aren’t you just taking up space?

Nielsen did make one mistake though in his presumption about the U.S. government when he said “After all, private companies are typically compelled by the realities of profit making; they embrace usability to increase their customer-conversion rates and improve their marketing. Government entities, however, don't have such profit-oriented motivations”.

REALLY?!?!?!

Just like from the moment you walk into a hospital you are a customer first and a patient second. You will pay for every person that pops their head in your little cloth cubical, whose best interest is really put first? I apologize if I’m offending anyone, and it may be a bit too Machiavellian for the rest of my liberal views, but I believe the government most certainly functions like a business. Not the most efficient or profitable business, but a business nonetheless, complete with its own money-making machines, “customers” (citizens), and more special interests than you can shake a stick at.

I did like Nielsen’s observation about the leading intranets having some sort of “explicit processes in place to manage content contributors”. It’s so easy to put something like this in place, it’s amazing how many websites are still out of date and not kept up.

There is a very relevant article on the “Websites That Suck” page that we looked at earlier in the summer… it’s located online at: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/amazon.html. Basically the article advises that web designers need to follow Amazon’s lead with any issue pertaining to usability.

Are you listening Beltway Bigwigs?