Citizen-Centric Portals

I'm working on a citizen-facing, US government portal that consolidates information in several interesting ways. I did a brief literature review on sites doing similar things, and here's what I've discovered so far.

By the way, I'm interested in university portals and corporate intranets as well. I would welcome comments about any government or non-government site that 1) stewards and presents content from across organizations, 2) requires close inter-organizational coordination for user authentication so individualized applications can be integrated, and typically 3) has to pull itself, and every other entity involved, up by the bootstraps to get the job done.

Discussion
The United States and other leading governments of the world have shown a growing commitment to the ideal of citizen-centric governance. Efforts in this direction are carried forward under such banners as “e-Government” and “Transparency and Open Government.”

The web is a key channel through which citizen-centric governance is fostered. A portal provides a practical and visible entry point for e-government initiatives. The classic approach is to develop one-stop, online access to an array of government services.

Government portal implementations can be seen passing through several developmental stages, providing:

• User-friendly cataloguing of information services in particular domains offered by various agencies
• One-stop access to important interactive and transactional e-services
• A platform for citizen engagement and collaboration
• Integrated delivery of all government services
• Integration of private as well as public services

User-centered approaches on government portals are likewise seen on a scale of maturity:

• Focus on defined citizen groups
• Access to information and services organized around simple topics
• Elaboration of information organization around “life events,” expanded topics, and expanded customer groups
• Broad focus on citizens, businesses, government employees, and interstate/international visitors

The delivery of a functioning portal at any level is dependent on the successful back-office integration of information systems and business processes through a shared or negotiated infrastructure. This involves often-challenging inter-agency technical integration and process re-engineering.

Interestingly, a portal can catalyze the development of new electronic services that could otherwise not be made available. And by enabling more client-oriented, accountable, and effective government, a portal can be a powerful instrument for administrative reform, anti-waste, and anti-corruption – and therefore can be a means to gain and promote public trust.

Case Studies
Three outstanding examples of cross-organizational portals are USA.gov, Direct.gov.uk, and ServiceCanada.gc.ca. The UK portal is the most advanced in my view.

• USA.gov (http://www.usa.gov) is an extensive database of links to information and online services on state and federal agency websites. Driven from search results via the usasearch.gov search platform, USA.gov categorizes content for browse and search by audiences, tasks, topic, agency, and other dimensions. It does not integrate transactional functionality within the portal.
• Direct.gov.uk (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm), Great Britain’s government site, provides single point of entry for all key government services, information, tools, and transactions (incorporating 18 government departments and 240 local services). Transactional tools are incorporated directly within the portal. Content is organized by subject, people, and other dimensions. The intention is to ultimately federate access to all public services online.
• Service Canada (http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca) is a central point of access to Government of Canada information. The initiative provides look-and-feel directives to agencies, and the portal links to information and online transactional services. Categorizations include by life events, audience, and subject. It is a well-organized catalog, though it does not integrate functionality within the portal itself

IA Summit in Second Life

We simulcast three sessions from the 2008 IA Summit into Second Life. Here's Andrew Hinton delivering his closing plenary
"Linkosophy." Also simulcast were Jared Spool's opening plenary "Journey to the Center of Design" and Jason Hobbs' "Hotel Yeoville."

This was pretty easy and inexpensive to do. The stream was hosted through NetroMedia, who were super helpful throughout. The cost for the three-day conference, including setup, was $300, and we didn't come near using the available bandwidth. (Actually we had a month of service we could have continued to use.) Additional bandwidth, in case of massive interest in your programming, is pretty inexpensive, too.

Technical details - quick summary:
1) I captured video and audio via an external camera and connection to the audio board, sent to my Macintosh laptop. (If you have built-in video and audio in your laptop, you could also point those at the speaker and capture that way.)

2) I encoded and sent the signal to NetroMedia using the free Quicktime Broadcaster utility (there are equivalent ones for PC).

3) As a landowner in Second Life I set the media stream there to the URL provided to me by NetroMedia, and I created a large screen on which the media would be displayed.

Post a comment or contact me via LinkedIn if you want to know more details. Other snapshots from the experiment are on Flickr. At some point this summer I'll post video excerpts from the sessions as well.

Wayfinding in Second Life - An IA Puzzle

The founders of the Nonprofit Commons sim in Second Life asked me for input on how to improve navigation for visitors to this 3D environment. The sim houses the virtual offices of more than 25 nonprofits, including CARE, Alzheimer Society of Ontario, AngelAID, Transgender Resource Center, Missouri Humanities Council, Techsoup, and the IA Institute.

What fun! The discussion is taking place on the NPSL wiki. Following an IA approach to a SL buildout, I suggested we determine the key scenarios, articulate factors that affect wayfinding, and then brainstorm possible solutions.

For instance, a first-time visitor might arrive at a main teleport site looking for a particular office; a return visitor might come just to explore; or someone could be at one office and want to get to another one.

Factors affecting wayfinding include signs that rez slowly and that visitors don't even recognize as signs; low awnings that obscure the storefronts from a flying position; and an orderly grid of buildings in which all places look very much alike.

Possible approaches include big navigational gestures that will register to new visitors even in a slow-rezzing environment (fortress-of-solitude arrows? a compass rose?); some way to distinguish the quadrants of the sim in a broad fashion (particles of color? memorable monuments?); and providing detail where called for (business names only on the main signpost, but logos on corner signposts?).

Other brainstorms include a single teleport hub to channel visitors through a designed wayfinding experience; a Welcome Center; street names; wearable HUD (heads up display); robot guides; and more.

Visit the discussion and please offer your own suggestions.

IA in Second Life - Redux

The remixed Information Architecture in Second Life: Summit Redux slidedeck was presented this weekend to DCIA, the Washington, DC information architecture crowd. The deck summarizes observations of panelists Josh Knauer, Andrew Hinton, Lori Bell, Beth Kanter, and Sarah Dilling on 1) opportunities for information architecture work in Web 3D and 2) how IAs can use Second Life as a platform for collaboration and education.