An efficient and effective way to improve quality of websites without hampering creativity would be… yup, transparency, specifically transparency about how well the website is working for the intended user. There are plenty of examples in the private sector—was this answer useful? How clear/interesting was this page? How easy was it to find what you wanted? The answers to these questions should be available in real time on every federal website. The results of this query should be used in evaluating and rewarding not only the staff directly responsible for the site but also the manager for that unit.
In an emerging field, this is a better way to identify and reach excellence than trying to set and enforce national rules.
(See also the usage statistics recommendations—excellent!)
Comments (1)
I think you have to engage some of the Fed IT report card regulations and references. Different gov agencies get a variety of grades on their IT report cards for many reasons -- here you should cite specifically how such improvements using feedback systems can be measured. In the financial world you see things like Sarbanes-Oxley (SarbOx) mandating how financial outfits audit IT and other key transactions. A similar set of mandates would have to be in place to ensure gov agencies are properly brokering information and measuring its use... in IT systems, primarily Web. The main concerns would be how do you treat gov-gov usage of websites versus gov-public usage?
Web sites are just one means of communication gov sourced information.