First State judged No. 1 on the Web

One winning feature of the state's Web site is the cloud of search terms, which appear as a collection of seemingly disjointed words (lower right), grouped at the bottom of the portal. The larger the word, the more popular the search. http://delaware.gov

Delaware's state Web site proudly proclaims, "It's Good Being First" -- and a new study of e-government efforts nationwide says that is no empty boast.

Brown University's annual review of more than 1,500 state and federal Web sites says Delaware is No. 1 when it comes to making information and services easily accessible online.

Delaware, which rated 15th in the nation last year, rocketed to first place in the survey conducted by the Brown University researchers in June and July.

It isn't just the state's portal -- http://www.delaware.gov/, which was redesigned in May -- that earned high marks. The researchers went well beneath the surface, following links to state agency sites and links within those sites.

When they were done, they gave Delaware a rating of 65.6 out of a possible 100, ahead of second-place Michigan, which ranked fourth last year. Wyoming came in last, with a rating of 28.6.

Delaware's No. 1 ranking comes as welcome recognition for the people who work behind the scenes to put content on the Web and keep the sites up and running.

"We're happy to see that Delaware has ranked No. 1. The Government Information Center and the Department of Technology and Information have worked together in the last year to enhance the Web site and the agency Web sites," said Greg Hughes, director of the Government Information Center.

The Government Information Center is responsible for the layout and the content of the state's Web sites, while DTI handles the more nuts-and-bolts aspects of the operations -- including the management and operation of the computer systems for all three branches of state government.

"The whole issue about e-government is making it easier to do business with government," said Thomas Jarrett, chief information officer for DTI.

The Brown study gave Delaware high marks for the consistency of design.

"Navigating through the various Delaware pages is easy because most of the sites followed the same layout, with translation tools, online services, privacy statements, contact information and search bars all located in the same place," the researchers wrote.

Darrell M. West, head of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown, which conducted the study, said consistency of design is important to the average Internet user.

"If every Web site has a different look, it takes a visitor 30 to 60 seconds to figure out how to find what they're looking for," West said. "Most people are not very patient on the Internet. If it takes you a minute to figure out where something is on a page, you're going to go somewhere else."

Visitors to the site can buy hunting, fishing and dog licenses, join the organ donor program, order copies of birth certificates and apply for state jobs or housing. Delaware's portal gets more than 350,000 "hits" per month, according to Hughes.

One recently added innovation is the "one-click search" function. Government Information Center officials culled the most popular search terms from the Web portal and assembled them on the main page to take visitors directly to the page they are seeking.

The search terms, which appear as a collection of seemingly disjointed words, are grouped at the bottom of the portal. The larger the word, the more popular the search.

The most popular one-click search is for state jobs, Hughes said. Also popular are searches for information on taxes, schools and the registry of convicted sex offenders.

The state portal also contains a link to a separate portal for kids, along with subscription services, podcasts and audio and video offerings. People also can submit photos for inclusion on the site, where galleries of submitted photos are grouped by topic.

The site also did well for its video offerings, which may be one of the next big things for state Web sites, Brown University's West said.

"You see a lot of that on commercial sites and certainly political sites. We saw that on the CNN YouTube presidential debate [Monday] night," West said. "Now people are expecting to see video on government Web sites."

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Posted by: twisted- Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:23 pm

There is a link to "Online Support" off of the home page that offers a variety of answers (FAQ) live support and email contacts. Maybe they should have named that differently? Maybe they could use a sweet spot roll-over that displays a embeded comment on things like that? Theres a lot they could do.

Posted by: willie- Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:03 pm

How about the fact that you can NOT report crime or tips on the Delaware State Police web page!

They have a lot of information but there is NO feedback options? Why is that?

Maybe they are so good they don't want to hear from us common folk or need our help!

Posted by: godswitness- Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:55 am

The banner that allows you to navigate back to the home page isnt alway present. SOmetimes you navigate to a totally different page that isnt part of the portal and then you have to use a back button or something. Then theres a part of the banner that takes you to a page for tourism and you cant navigate back easily. That isnt good navigation or use of the portal if that is what is underneath this.

ALso the serach capability is really limited. And this is just the front end of the portal. Too many of the other parts of state government are way behind in development to even be considered up to date. So theres no consistent look and feel on the site.

There are some plus sides here but the technology team in charge shouldnt get all puffed up about stories that this is so great. It is good but theres still a lot of work to do. I would be interested in finding out how many diagnostics are running in the background and how they intend to make things better as time goes on.

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