The digital revolution has not only made life faster, more efficient and allowed for greater collaboration, it has also altered the way in which people communicate with each other in terms of the timing of information, language and expectations we have from different websites and internet functions. People are now much more likely to interact with website editors and contributors and generate their own content to share with contacts in a series of conversations.
Against this backdrop, Directgov steadfastly remains a one-way broadcaster, with a distinct lack of response mechanisms and opportunities for interacting with other users. Consequently, it is out of touch with its users. To be genuinely transformational, as the strategy title suggests it would like to be, Directgov must understand the new relationships people forge with services via the web, and work out how to respond to these expectations. If Government wants to engage with citizens and create better services and relationships, we suggest opening up communication to show there is a genuine readiness to listen. The alternative is turning consumers off.

We question the sheer amount of information included, and suggest information is selected on the basis of consumers’ expectations and does not try to replicate other trusted sources. We also recommend a new approach to tailoring information and services to consumers, based on their preferences and location. Perhaps, for example, having a personalised home page or space to keep records of previous transactions.

We would also like to see improvements to existing search and navigation facilities based on an understanding of the way people actually use the web. Directgov would benefit from being more responsive to users, and giving them appropriate opportunities to add value to the content and design of the information and functions on the site.

A good example of this is the recent global outbreak of Swine Flu which during one week in May 2009, saw UK searches increase 58-fold in a week²⁹. A large number of these searches led people to the relevant Wikipedia page. Wikipedia³⁰ is an online encyclopaedia written collaboratively by users and named editors. So if the key aim is to get the right information to people, perhaps public health officials, content editors at Directgov and NHS Direct should be working in tamden with Wikipedia to make sure that Wikipedia is providing the very best healthcare advice on how to deal with the virus.

This example shows that people are simply becoming accustomed to looking for information on the web in ways that best suit them and appear for whatever reason, to be more likely to go to a website like Wikipedia than Directgov.

While raising obvious questions about where responsibility lies for information and issues around malicious editing, it also suggests a different role for Government; one where instead of trying to hold onto information, it is watching other activity on the web and making sure it is involved as a key voice. This fits with the Central Office of Information’s guidance for civil servants on engaging with social media³¹.

It is really important to understand how people are now using the web to access information. Government needs to think carefully about how to design Directgov in such a way that it becomes renowned for enabling consumers to find information easily, moulding itself around consumer behaviours and expectations, rather than imposing behaviours that work for the provider.

28. Dutton, W.H and Helsper, E.J, 2007. The internet in Britain. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute
29. Hitwise Intelligence at http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2009/05/swine_flu_searches_increase_58.html
30. Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
31. Central Office of Information: Engaging through social media: a guide for civil servants, 2009

The search engine on Directgov seems to work reasonably well but can go wrong. Our early testing found the first response to a simple search to find out how to give blood returned an out of date and irrelevant entry from 2004 called ‘Donor ban to protect blood supply’²⁶, this has since been rectified by Directgov so that a more relevant entry appears first. Research from the London School of Economics and Oxford Internet Institute found the Directgov search engine routinely finds over 500-plus results, and, instead of working through the results, people tend to leave the site and go to Google where results are perceived to be better organised²⁷.

An entirely independent demonstration site shows how this works in practice, Directionlessgov (see www.directionlessgov.com) was set up by members of the Democracy.org group and pits the ability of the government site’s internal search engine against Google’s search capability in a site which cost very little time and money to build. The site raises several issues beyond the direct comparison of search engines, not least on cost. It suggests that the internet already has existing tools which people able to use easily to find information that are more effective than Government-procured functions.

This reveals a difficulty – everything is in one place, but it is a confusing place. The question then is, can it deliver added value by giving consumers something more than just a search engine?  Proponents of the service would argue that just to have every public service in one recognisable site is a valuable thing in itself, but we feel that this is not enough on its own and that the emphasis needs to shift from thinking about what the service is to what people want and need from it.

25. Department for Work and Pensions, following FOI request from Consumer Focus 3 April 2009
26. Accessed 31 March 2009
27. Dutton, W.H. and Helsper, E.J., 2007. The internet in Britain. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute, p.66.

• The ‘home and community’ do-it-online page has a link to voting at the top, which makes sense, but this is followed with a link to buying a map from the Ordnance Survey²¹
• The area labelled ‘find out about your neighbourhood ²²  has links to statistical profiles of public census information, which may be interesting to some but these are given prominence over more primary concerns such as, for example, finding the nearest post office.

Much content duplicates the work of existing trusted sources and is, arguably, at odds with consumer expectations. For example, in the parenting section²³ , the information on statutory maternity pay is relevant, but consumers are unlikely to turn to the Government for information on how to conceive as there are so many other trusted sources such as NHS Direct, or self-supporting parenting sites like netmums²⁴.

The architecture of the website is even more confusing for people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than in England. They are told there are different services for the devolved administrations but there is not any clear signposting to them. While there is information about different governance structures, there is not any specific information relating to specific themes. 

The amount of content brings us back to an earlier point in chapter 1: information is included if it is easily available and possible for Directgov to provide, rather than because consumers expect or demand it.

21. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4017525 [Accessed 9 September 2009]
22. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4017923 [Accessed 9 September 2009]
23. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/HavingABaby/index.htm [Accessed 9 September 2009]
24. Netmums. Available at: http://www.netmums.com [Accessed 9 September 2009]

This is difficult to achieve within the current Directgov architecture. It relies heavily on signposting users through its homepage. At present, there are over a 100 sections and headings that link from the home page. The home page is overcrowded with multiple topics vying for attention. Compare this with websites offering a similar number of products and services via the web, for example, Ocado has 75 links, John Lewis has 59 and Tesco has 52. Directgov would benefit from adhering to some basic design principles; research shows that people faced with too many choices on a website page will switch off completely¹⁹. 

The website is currently structured into two areas: a browse-able part with themes such as  ‘parents’, ‘employment’, ‘young people’ and ‘health and well-being’ for making a tailored information search; and the ‘do-it-online’ area where where a visitor to the site is directed towards an opportunity for a transaction or a further tailored information search.

The interest-based themes can make it difficult to determine the right category since not all people will identify specific topics under the same theme. For example, if you are a young parent do you look in the parenting section or in young people? Are passports exclusively about travel, or do they relate to citizenship and nationality? Directgov is continuing to research the best way to present these categories. However, we would suggest allowing users to tailor content around their own interests and identity is a better approach. Redbridge Council does this with its Redbridge-i service which automatically responds to users’ needs and preferences²⁰.

19. See work by Jakob Nielson for examples of this
20. Redbridge-I. Available at: http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/  [Accessed 9 September 2009].

18. Business Link http://www.businesslink.gov.uk

There are a couple of problems with this, firstly that the information is not built around priorities in public services but around what the site is able to easily provide, and secondly that the type of information that is here may be best accessed through a general search engine, as opposed to through a central Government portal.

Some of the independent websites that Directgov links to are quite idiosyncratic, with unclear provenance. For example, the link for a list of UK libraries is to an independent website giving gold stars to libraries¹⁶. Some links seem an odd choice. For example, tidal information is provided by a commercial site¹⁷ when the BBC provides a full service along with the shipping forecast from the UK Hydrographic Office. These might seem marginal criticisms but they reflect bigger questions about the website strategy and selection criteria. Without a clear consumer-focused framework, the website has morphed from its original vision of being easy and interesting to use, to a vast information warehouse.

16. UK Public Libraries. Available at: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/tow September 2009.
17. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4017497