Week Two-Post #3 General Discussion of Best Practice Sites

General Discussion of Best Practice Sites

by David Tetta - Saturday, 5 April 2008, 08:54 AM

What sites do you think are best practice sites?

Look at best state, city, local sites based on either the CDG or Brown studies.
What are features that make this a best practice site?
Possibilities could be:

• Easy navigation
• Search features
• Useful services easy to find
• Foreign language options
• Citizen centric or department focused?
• Easy to find staff if want to use phone or email?

Post a response indicating one or two sites you think are evidence of this and why?

Utilizing the website evaluation criteria established in the Brown study I identified, Access Washington (www.access.wa.gov) as the best state website. The features that make Access Washington the best practice site are; the ease of navigation throughout the site, the content of the site and the usefulness of the information provided. This website is unique because it offers all three forms of government communication as address in our numerous handouts within class as well as the book.

There is information on the site for government to government communications, government to business communications and government to citizen communications. In addition, information is provided in six alternate languages, a search feature have retrieves information from all government websites within Washington State and content on the website is subdivided into seven primary categories depending on the type of service you are searching for (Living in Washington, working/employment, doing business, government, education/learning and visiting/recreation).

The main homepage is developed to similar standards as Rona addressed in her presentation. The homepage allows for a “What’s new?” section as well as commonly searched for topics. Overall I am extremely satisfied with this website and I personally use it for a primary point-of-contact when researching specific questions I have.