12 Best Government Websites
Easy access to government online has gone from being nice-to-have to being necessary in the "open government" era, with many government websites taking advantage of modern designs and technologies to help do the trick. All too often, local, state and federal governments and government agencies do far too little to reach out to citizens on the web. Many governments and agencies are stuck in the 1990s era of tacky animated images, an over-abundance of white space, and confusing arrays of links. Ho
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Take the Air Force, for example. It's not the official, ".mil" U.S. Air Force site, but the Air Force's recruitment site at airforce.com has a stunning launch page replete with crisp three-dimensional interactive graphics and embedded video. Dig into the site a bit, and you'll find detailed games designed to teach visitors more about the Air Force. It's a great representative of what a good government Website should be all about.
Many Americans do believe the government should be more transparent and engage better with its citizens, according to a survey commissioned by cloud-based software vendor RightNow Technologies. Ninety-six percent of respondents said the government could improve how it engages with citizens, and agreed that technology -- in particular the web -- was a good way to do it. But they doubt the government will catch up to commercial organizations and their skill in using the web to reach customers. Seventy-three percent said that improving website usability was the best way for the government to tactically engage with the public, while 52 percent said that creating an agency-branded forum or community would also help. Using the web to access government services via email, web community, chat and social-networking sites also was a popular means of engagement, with 77 percent of respondents saying they would like to engage that way.
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The Defense Information Systems Agency is moving its headquarters and thousands of employees from just south of Washington, D.C. to a new headquarters in the Maryland suburbs, and the agency's Base Realignment and Closure site is packed full with well-laid-out, practical information to help employees through the transition, from calendars to commute times to moving help.
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NASA's @ Home and City site is a nifty little site where visitors can do a virtual walkthrough of a cartoon house and images of numerous industries, along the way learning about the practical benefits space exploration has brought to modern life. It's a great educational introduction to the benefits of NASA, and an excellent self-promotion vehicle for the agency.
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The look and feel of Utah's website remains incredibly fresh and innovative one year after a major redesign. The site makes heavy use of social media, search and the latest design cues, but also includes easy access to features like local calendars and real-time traffic cameras throughout the state.
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The Department of Homeland Security's site is nothing if not easy to use. The visitor's eyes are immediately drawn to the "I Want to" box in the upper left corner, where links to career opportunities, checking the threat level and popular searches stand out. News resides in graphics to the right of those links and in blurbs below the fold, just prominent enough to be noticeable but not overwhelming.
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The website of the Republican Party is attractive and subtle in style, albeit less subtle (of course) in its political content. Links to social media are in the right place, the site is very usable and easy to navigate, and important information is front-and-center.
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The federal government's official website, USA.gov, used to be a morass of links that harkened back to a late-1990s version of Yahoo. Recently re-launched, the site has been simplified, now relying much more on integrated search, links to the most popular government sites, and a new mobile apps store.
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Although there are a lot of links on Alabama's homepage, they're not overwhelming. The graphics and color scheme are attractive, and the site makes extensive use of Google Maps to let citizens know about the locations of nearby government facilities and services. The site also prominently features popular searches.
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The District of Columbia has been a leader in tech and open government since now-federal CIO Vivek Kundra was the CTO there a couple of years ago. His successors have continued the legacy, offering things like a new statistics site, APIs, online 311 and DMV services, and an attractive site to boot.
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Criticized for good reason when it launched without scrubbing its data before making it public, the website of the stimulus package is now going strong, allowing people to slice and dice the data on recovery spending, drilling down into state and local spending and getting details on that project down the street.
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The post office is one of the highest-touch government (well, quasi-government these days) services, and its website bears that out, as the site is packed with things to do online as opposed to overwhelming visitors with things to read. Find a zip code, calculate postage, stop your male, buy stamps or print shipping labels, all from the comfort of a home office.
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The Obama administration -- and political movement -- has always been particularly web-savvy, and the White House website is no exception. The White House team built the site on Drupal, added easy, clear navigational capabilities and links to numerous social media outlets, and puts the top White House priorities front and center where nobody can miss them.
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The Obama administration -- and political movement -- has always been particularly web-savvy, and the White House website is no exception. The White House team built the site on Drupal, added easy, clear navigational capabilities and links to numerous social media outlets, and puts the top White House priorities front and center where nobody can miss them.
SEE ALSO:
Take the Air Force, for example. It's not the official, ".mil" U.S. Air Force site, but the Air Force's recruitment site at airforce.com has a stunning launch page replete with crisp three-dimensional interactive graphics and embedded video. Dig into the site a bit, and you'll find detailed games designed to teach visitors more about the Air Force. It's a great representative of what a good government Website should be all about.
Many Americans do believe the government should be more transparent and engage better with its citizens, according to a survey commissioned by cloud-based software vendor RightNow Technologies. Ninety-six percent of respondents said the government could improve how it engages with citizens, and agreed that technology -- in particular the web -- was a good way to do it. But they doubt the government will catch up to commercial organizations and their skill in using the web to reach customers. Seventy-three percent said that improving website usability was the best way for the government to tactically engage with the public, while 52 percent said that creating an agency-branded forum or community would also help. Using the web to access government services via email, web community, chat and social-networking sites also was a popular means of engagement, with 77 percent of respondents saying they would like to engage that way.
SEE ALSO: 12 Worst Government Websites Inside DHS' Classified Cyber Coordination Headquarters Who's Who In U.S. Intelligence
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