# Presentation: 703841

## Determining Content and Information Architecturefor FirstGov.govThe U.S. Government’s Official Web Portal

**August 2005**

## Determining Content for FirstGov

**24 million government web pages.  How do we determine how to structure and what to feature?**
**Customer Segmentation**
**What Customers Want**
**What Government Has to Offer**

## Customer Segmentation

**Citizens -- ****297 Million Americans (>60% are Online)**
**41 million kids 5-14; 19 million teens 15-19; 16 million college students**
**34 million households with children under 18**
**33 million seniors over 65**
**138 million workers **
**94 million low income**
**26 million U.S. residents speak Spanish at home**
**U.S. population includes 33 million persons born in other countries**
**51 million foreign tourists came to the U.S. and spent $85 billion in 2000 **
**Business**
**5.6 million employer firms (4.9 million < 500 employees)**
**56 million employees work for small business (<500 employees)**
**25 million work for medium size business (500-9,999 employees)**
**30 million work for big business (>10,000 employees)**
**12 million self-employed**
**Government – 18 Million Government Workers**
**2.7 million federal government employees (760 thousand military)**
**15 million state and local government employees**
**  ****3 million Native Americans**
**26 million veterans**

## Determining Content for FirstGov:What Customers Want

**Feedback from FirstGov.gov Visitors**
**FirstGov Site and Search Statistics**
**Contact Us (e-mail FAQs)**
**Suggest-A-Link**
**Customer Satisfaction and Other Surveys**
**Nielsen Net Ratings**
**Input from Call Centers (1-800-FED-INFO)**
**Input from Government Agencies & Partners**
**Librarians, Teachers, Students, Others**
**Internet and Market Research Statistics**
**Usability Research**
**FirstGov Focus Groups & Usability Tests**

**Notes:**
How do we know what our FirstGov current and potential customers want.  We get input from several sources.
We look at those currently using FirstGov.gov – I.e., our current customers. We look at:
Our site statistics.  We use the Webtrends software to do this.  We look not only at how many hits, visitors, unique visitors, and page views we are getting, but we also look at:
What pages are they clicking on most.  What pages are they NOT clicking on.  What is their click stream through the site.  From what page do they exit the site. 
We also look at what words our current visitors are searching for most ... and compare that to the terminology we are using on the site.
Here are a few of our statistics.  
We get over 700,000 unique visitors a week, who view over 2.1 million pages a week.
The most clicked on pages in a sample week always include: Search, America Responds to Terrorism, our A-Z Index of all Federal departments and agencies.  Others usually in the top five include state, local & US Territory resources, reference, citizen online services, the citizen and government gateways, and frequently asked questions.
In terms of frequently searched terms, we usually see: grants, jobs, employment, passport, visa, forms, and lottery
We also have several features on our site that help us get feedback: Contact Us, Suggest-A-Link, and a Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
We receive about 250 messages a week through Contact Us and about 15 messages through Suggest a Link.
The trend holds steady that about 90% of the messages we receive are not related to the FirstGov website, they are questions/comments about other government agencies and programs.
Common topics: questions about immigration/visa issues; questions concerning locating government grant and loan information, and inquiries about government benefit information
Common topics are also seasonal:
January 2001: comments about the election and the new President; April 2001: comments about the U.S. spy plane situation in China; Summer 2001: questions about tax credit checks; September/October 2001: questions/comments about terrorist attacks (as many as 20 messages per day in the days following the attacks); January-March 2002: tax questions
We are also about to let a contract with Nielsen Net Ratings to learn even more about our customers.
We also get information from Call Centers, especially the National Contact Center operated operated by the Federal Consumer Information Center.  This contact center has been answering the phone from the public for the last 30 years on any question about government.  They have been keeping data on what the public asks for the last 20 or so years.  We use this data to make sure the MOST commonly requested things are one or two clicks away from our home page.  These include:
Passports, grants, loans, benefit programs, housing, drivers licenses, birth/marriage/death certificates, savings bonds, Federal Communications Commission
We also get lots of input from other government agencies and partners...what are their most frequently asked questions from web users, what are the common questions from their call centers
We also look at general internet and market research statistics.  What is it that Americans are using the Internet for, and what specifically are they looking for from government on the Internet.
There are lots of sources of this information – PEW Internet Study, Council for Excellence in Government, Hart-Teeter polls, ....
For example, 
[Site % of Americans on Internet, other interesting fact, and source]
Most common things Americans do on the Internet are e-mail,  ... (Source:
That can be broken down further.  For example, most common thing (teenagers, or some other group) do on Internet are .... (Source:
Most common things Americans want from government on the Internet are .... (Source:
We also look at general usability research especially from usability.gov so we can learn from others and not have to do expensive usability testing on everything.
We also conduct focus groups and one-on-one usability tests specifically on FirstGov.gov – with different audience groups.  Let me show you some of our general findings [next slide]

## What’s On Americans’ Minds?Top Requests at FirstGov.gov

**How to get Government Benefits and Grants**
- Help with buying a home
- Starting or running a small business
- Social security
- Government grants
- Disaster assistance
**How to get a Federal Job**
**How to Buy Things from Government – **cars, homes, guide to buying
**International Travel**
- Passport applications and questions
- What immunizations are needed
**Naturalization and Immigration**
- Visas
- Check status of green cards
- Becoming a citizen
**A Few Examples of Many Others**
- A-Z Index of Government Agencies
- Address change, Drivers Licenses, Vital Records
- How to comment on legislation or contact Congress or White House
- Money—wage and hour issues, investments, savings, savings bonds, credit, making a will, taxes
- Consumer Protection—scams and fraud, ID Theft, Do Not Call Registry
- Weather
- State Lottery Results
**Seasonal/Sporadic:**
- Taxes, foreign policy issues, disasters, top news items

## Determining Content for FirstGov:What Government Has to Offer

**Input from e-Gov Initiatives, Government Agencies, Cross Agency Portals and Partners**
**New Features/Services**
**FAQs/Top Requests**
**Call Centers and FOIA Requests**
**Expertise of their Audiences, Subject Matter, Services, Websites**
**FirstGov and Other Searches**
**Daily Broken Links Reports**
**Benchmark Against Best-in-Class**
**International; Federal/State/Local; Private**
**Review of Hot News, New Sites and Awards**
**In-Depth Research and Analysis**
**Government Domain Registration (.gov, .mil, .fed.us)**
**Federal Business Reference Model/Services for Citizens**

**Notes:**
[Examples for first one]

We check for broken links every day.  We use the software called Link Alarm.  We usually notify other agencies when we find broken links because we know not everyone is checking every day.

We also benchmark other government portals that we consider best in class to make sure we are staying the best.  We look at what they are offering, how they are offering, what terminology they use, what they consider the frequently asked questions.
International –
State –
Local –
Private –

We also watch the technology press for new sites, new features and which websites are winning awards and why

We also do in-depth research when we want to add or change something on FirstGov.  For example, when we added the Suggest-A-Link feature, we looked at who else is doing it, what are they calling it, how are they doing it, where are they placing it on their site, etc.

## FirstGov.gov Linking Policy

**Official government-owned or supported site**
**Official government  information or services**
**Complements existing information and services**
**Accessible and applicable to a wide audience**
**Relevant and useful for our customers**
**Accurate and current**
**Consistent with privacy and security policies**
**User-friendly**
**Highly desirable:**
**Crosses agency or intergovernmental boundaries**
**Enables online transactions**
**Includes ability to interact with government**
**Provides information on service performance**
**Provides community-level information and services**

## Features & Functionality: Search

**In depth Search of U.S. government, both federal and state information**
**Searches .gov and .mil domains at federal level; also State home pages**
**Creates index of millions of government web pages**
**Search all pages in less than 1⁄4 of a second**
**Search capability free to federal agency websites**

## Features & Functionality: Browse

**By Organization**
**Federal, State, Local, Tribal, Hierarchy, Cross Agency Portals, and A-Z Index**
**By Audience Channels and Sub-Audience**
**Citizen – Kids, College Students, Parents, Seniors, Spanish Speakers, Disabled Persons, Americans Living and Traveling Abroad...**
**Business -- Nonprofit, Self Employed, Small, Exporters...**
**Federal Employee **
**Government to Government – State & Local, Tribal...**
**By Topical (Subject) Directory**
**14 Top Level Topics –Benefits/Grants, Education/Jobs, Health...**
**By Means of Public Contact With Government**
**In-Person (Location), Phone, eMail**
**Special Features/Highlights**
**Online Services, Most Requested, Seasonal, New, Special Topics**

## FirstGov.gov Redesigns

**Sept 2000  FirstGov Initial Launch**
**Search**
**Organizational Directory**
**Topics**
**Feb 2002    Major Site Redesign**
**Added Audience Segmentation—Citizen, Business, Government**
**Focus on Get It Done Online**
**May 2003    Site Refresh**
**Home Page same as Citizen Gateway**
**Federal Employees as Separate Gateway**
**More Sub-audiences – Parents, Americans Abroad, NonProfits, Military and Veterans**
**Incorporated Get It Done Online into each Topic**
**October 2003 FirstGov en Espanol Launch**

## Directory, By Organization

**How Built:**
**Started with the U.S. Government Manual**
**Found Website URLs, Uncovered Expired Organizations**
**Heard from Other Entities to be Added; Public Input**
**How Maintained/Improved:**
**What are the Organizations?**
**Causes for Change: Reorganizations, Renaming, New Organizations, Expired Organizations**
**Sources: Federal Register, Agencies, News Releases, Domain Registry, FACA Database, Public Input**
**What are the Websites?**
**Causes for Change: New Websites, Renamed URLs, Broken URLs**
**Sources: Daily link checking software, Domain registry, Agencies, E-Mail**

## Taxonomy, By TopicBuilding, Maintaining and Improving

**Initial Look at Other Government and Internet Portals**
**Topics covered by these sites and topics that cross agency lines**
**Analysis of What Public Wants from Government**
**Website Usage Statistics (clicked pages, search terms); Common questions by e-Mail and Phone; Research on what public comes to government sites most; focus groups; usability; more**
**AND Analysis of What Government Has to Offer**
**Agencies (espertise, FAQ, Phone, FOIA); Search; Domain Registration; Business Reference Model; Broken Links; Research; News**
**Validating and Improving:**
**Detailed Look at Other Government Subject Taxonomies – LOC, CRS, GILS/State Taxonomies, **
**Benchmarking Other International Website Portals, U.S. Government Directories, State Portals **
**Information Architects, Librarians, Taxonomy Specialists, Content Analysts Review**

## Slide 14

## Taxonomy, By Audience

**Market Segment Analysis**
**Lifestages and other major audiences**
**What’s Already Been Built**
**Gap Analysis: What is missing?**
**Prioritizing**
**Refining based on continued analysis, usage and public input**
**Learning from expertise of each agency and together to further refine audiences**

## Slide 16

## Performance Measures FirstGov Success

|  | FY 2001 | FY 2002 | FY 2003 | FY 2004 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Website visitors | 14 million | 33 million | 63 million | 78 million |
| Web page views | 48 million | 91 million | 176 million | 203 million |
| Sites that link to FirstGov |  | 77,000 | 129,000 | 209,000 |

## Web Content Best Practices

**Define purpose of website**
**Define your audience(s)**
**Focus on audience, not on your organization or program names **
**Provide audience interaction and listen to your audience**
**Respond to customers**
**Continue to define your audience**

## Web Content Best Practices

**Define information architecture**
**Offer information/services in different ways/paths**
**Avoid duplication and confusion – develop once, then use many times**
**Get forms and services online**
**3-click rule for common services/information**
**Structure content to make it scan-able**
**Use table of contents (with anchors) for longer pages**
**Create consistent navigation**
**Create consistent look and feel**
**Partner with organizations, agencies, states and localities to better serve your customers**

## Web Content Best Practices

**Write for the web**
**Use plain language your audience understands**
**Determine style guide and use consistent style**
**Keep content up-to-date**
**Check often for broken links**
**Create linking, security, privacy policies & post them **
**Make site accessible and usable for persons with disabilities**
**Test your site in browsers and  levels of machines**
**Set performance measures and use them to manage**
**Check back often with your customers – and use their input**