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Where Are Some Good eGovernment Websites?
Among the factors that make a good e-government website, the most important are perhaps:
- the quantity and quality of the information provided;
- the way in which this is presented and made available;
- the level of interactivity of the site;
- the availability of partial or full online services to the public;
- the level of accessibility to the disabled and other visitors using alternative technologies.
As a way to guide the process of planning and evaluating your website, you may find it helpful to visit some of the following e-government sites, which appear to attain good quality standards in some, or most of the aspects listed above.
Singapore eCitizen Portal
The Singapore eCitizen portal is a particularly good example of a "one-stop shop" eGovernment website, providing citizens with access to a very wide range of fully online services. Access to the services is provided primarily via option lists labelled "I want to." or "How Do I.": a sign of the adoption of a strongly user-centred approach to the information architecture. The information is also listed by subject, and the site is linked to from most other governmental websites. The Singapore eCitizen portal represents an example of best practice in e-government web services, its only weakness being perhaps the apparent lack of implementation of measures to make the site fully accessible to the disabled.
South African Government
The government of the Republic of South Africa also adopts a courageous and direct user-oriented approach, by providing access to services directly from its main homepage. The number of fully online services offered by the services site itself (http://www.services.gov.za) is still rather limited but there is a lot of information available for consultation (especially geographical), and in many cases users can download the forms needed to interact with the different government agencies involved. The information is well organised, according to user profile (individuals, organisation, and foreign nationals) and to transaction type, or subject. But unfortunately also in this case there appears to have been no implementation of specific accessibility measures for the disabled in the design of the site.
Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation Website
http://www.visakhapatnammunicipalcorporation.org/
The site of the East Indian city of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) represents a very good example of a municipal web platform, providing access to a variety of fully online transactions with local government, including tax payment and calculation, or licence and registration requests. Information and services are presented by subject (or action) rather than by user profile: this may be due to the fact that the primary target audience of the site (the residents and businesses of the town) is relatively restricted in scope and complexity. Again, one of the weak points of the site is the lack of implementation of the minimum accessibility features that would make it easy to use by disabled citizens. The web address of the site (URL) is also a bit unwieldy though it has the advantage of being relatively memorable.
Pakistan Government Forms Website
The Pakistani government has gone some way in using the web to facilitate relations between the State and the public by dedicating an entire, standalone website to the online delivery of forms , to be downloaded and printed out by us ers. The s ite is helpfully called www.forms.gov.pk (easy to remember), and is clearly linked also from the main governmental website (http://www.pakistan.gov.pk). In many cases, the forms come with information about how they should be filled, and the bureaucratic procedure they relate to. Providing downloadable documents is perhaps the first and easiest thing you can do through your e-government website, and it can already be of great help to citizens and businesses. Pakistan's forms website does this well by structuring information in a clear way and providing access to the documents in two or three clicks of a mouse.
Web Accessibility Initiative
Finally, not an e-government website but the website of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):
As we have seen with the sites listed above, accessibility appears to remain a problem in e-government websites in developing countries. Yet, programming for accessibility would prove an asset to e-government projects in developing countries, as the techniques applied have the advantage of making a site accessible on a variety of platforms, including less than recent computer setups, which can be common in developing contexts. Therefore, it is recommended you pay a visit to this site, as it would help in the planning and design of your website.