Understanding the Problem Through Research
In 2009, the Obama Administration launched a "Open Government Initiative" in order to improve government-citizen relationships by making information easier to access, more transparent, and presented in a way that enables citizens to participate and collaborate in all processes of the government.
Since then, the administration has created easy to use websites to track government spending, memorandums of best practices, and other partnerships with other nations at the UN. While these efforts are great on a Federal level, 89,000+ local governments still have no way of standardizing its communication channels with its constituents. Smaller cities and counties are especially struggling to implement and adapt to technology because that may lack the budget and resources to update content, develop a web presence.
Knowing this, the questions I wanted to ask was:
- How do people currently interact with the local government?
- What kind of resources (info and services) do people seek from their local governments?
- How do people want to interact with their local governments?
- What expectations do people have of their local governments and is it being met?
The Current Landscape & Emerging Trends
As more citizens look to the internet instead of print journalism to conveniently seek information, they are confronted with information dispersed all across the web and from unreliable sources like social media or news media (questionably biased). Information is difficult to find and hard to understand because language and processes are not established in a place that people can understand.
When looking for government information, people are using:
- Social Media - for quick, "real-time" updates but (not accurate or reliable)
- News Media - reliable (questionably reliable)
- Government Websites - reliable, but language is hard to understand
When participating in civic engagement, people are using these platforms:
- Political Parties - partisan engagement
- Non-Profit Government Organizations (NGOs) - voter engagement and information literacy
- Social Media - activism organization
What does this mean?
Being accessible on the internet is increasingly important way to interact with the government. There is a push to make government websites more:
- Stream-lined
- mobile friendly
- citizen-centric
- less likely to be obsolete (able to stand the test of time)
Our product must be able to deliver non-partisan information in a "real-time"or quick method. This will help alleviate friction when navigating through our competitors and finding information.
Understanding the Target Audience
In order to paint a clear picture of "who" our typical person is in when interacting with the government, I particularly looked at exiting agencies like 18F, who conducted research on government-citizen relationships. We also collected 31 respondents from a survey we conducted and summarized insights from 12 user interviews.
Current Perception of Local Government
Government trust-worthiness is rooted in past experiences and interactions as well as the urgency of their requests when experiencing life events. (18F)
Our users from our studies have told us that they found government websites and processes hard to navigate, confusing, or that the government does not do a sufficient enough job with providing them straight-forward and clear direct answers.
"It's so hard to find information. They don't advertise their meetings...it can be overwhelming to find out if you don't become friends with someone who is involved."
- Thuyvi, User Interview
A big common theme was people mentioned is that they don’t know how to start or they don’t feel confident that they know how to voice their opinion. Users said they wanted to be well educated and well-informed before interacting with them.
What does this mean?
When the design and information is difficult to understand and not very user-friendly, people may struggle or feel less confident in their interaction and it impacts their beliefs and perceptions of the government that it is not transparent and erodes the trust people have with their government.
Current Behaviors and Interactions
When we asked respondents what “getting involved” with the local government mean, these four categories were most mentioned:
- Voting
- Seeking Services
- Communicating Directly
- Being physically present
We found that 67% of respondents and users have interacted with their local government. The interaction is reported on average once a year or less. Voting is the extent of what people do when interacting with the government. These interactions are driven by personal interests.
However, there are also 3 barriers to accessing government information:
- Digital Literacy
- Digital Access
- English-Fluency
These barriers all range on a spectrum. When inadequate information or too many options present itself, people feel ill prepared to make choices about government services leading them to abandon the process all together or struggle indefinitely.
People also have different styles of information seeking. Their style affects the kind of services they access, benefits they receive, and outcomes in life events. If people feel less confident about the likelihood in receiving a service, they are more likely not to engage and it impacts their beliefs and perceptions.
There are 2 types of information seekers:
In addition to a person's information seeking style, people want clarity on the entire process in order to feel at ease and reassured from the government:
- All the steps they undergo
- Status of the request
- Contact information/reference point when questions or concerns arise
- Follow-up response with reasoning and explanation
What does this mean?
It is clear that that the government does not have the capacity to offer aid and support when promoting their services because either there is a shortage of public servants or their fragmented and siloed digital infrastructure is not set up in a way to assist.
By understanding who our target audience is and the barriers to accessing information, I can better devise strategies to meet users where they are and consider the large and diverse population of people the government typically serves. As designers, if we can improve the outcomes and the experience, we can better build the relationship between the government and its people.
