What a public-first website could look like. Specifically, how to approach getting from here, to there.

The first consideration to address should be on the approach of how you get from your current, probably very large, and very organizationally heavy website that is focused on all the great work your organization does – to the future state. How do you transition all that data into useful workstreams that the public can more easily comprehend and focus in on the activities/actions that they are interested in without being bombarded by everything else (AKA Spam)?

You have at least four main types of change that will have to be managed to be successful and there are probably many more.

1)???? Fear of change. That’s the way we have always done it, it works fine, the public depends on what we provide. Why would we implement any sort of drastic changes, the public won’t accept it? I know that in conversations on this topic with various programs, I have witnessed complete dismissal about any sort of changes in how things are now.

2)???? Fear of not being noticed/relevant. The various offices want to see their efforts highlighted for all to see, regardless of if the content is relevant to that user. This may also be how they get awareness and general good will to help further their mission. Without it, would their content be missed or overlooked?

3)???? Fear of job security. There are jobs solely focused on maintaining these monstrous site supporting hundreds of pages, fixing broken links, updating themes, translating content into different languages, etc. What will these folks do if they are not focused on supporting web pages?

4)???? Fear of technology. There are technologies that have been built around this concept of enormous amounts of web content that have to be managed. Will those concepts be meaningful in a new paradigm? Not to mention all the current limitations of our current implementations like poor search capabilities.

A typical approach would be to pilot some smaller portion of the website, try out a few things to see what works well, and then incrementally expand the pilot until all the website has been converted into the new implementation. If you have lots of time and lots of funding, then that could be a viable approach. However, I think it would be a bit like pushing the proverbial rope up the hill. We are talking about trying to overcome decades of inertia and mass in the wrong direction. Not to mention all the fears listed above that you will have to overcome. Incremental change probably won’t be an effective approach in most instances.

I have always been a fan of the proof is in the pudding. Perhaps the best way to address those fears are to temporarily bypass them leaving the status quo as is for the time being and build a new presence in the desired layout. Initially that new presence will have to ‘point’ back to the existing data, but that will help the users be much more efficient at getting to the data they need instead of trying to navigate complicated websites, dropdown menus, and broken links. With this new presence you can demonstrate how the new structure will address each of the fears:

1)???? Make completing a task much easier and direct. When things are easier, then there is a much higher adoption rate and there will be less of a resistance from the public for the change. I honestly think that the public is wanting for change but just have no recourse to demand that it happen.

2)???? Ensure that their message/content will be received by those users that are interested in it and even given the targeted users a more immersive environment to play around in since everything will be related to the topic at hand. Narrow the focus and enhance the quality of the content.

3)???? Afford opportunities for staff to extend their skill sets to learn new technologies and approaches that will keep them relevant with the IT industry including artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, customer experience, and case management/workflow technologies.

4)???? Really push the new frontiers for artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the services provided to the public on a massive scale. How huge would that be? And the possibility of reducing costs over the long term as we become nimbler and more efficient in providing targeted information to the public.

I think the possibilities that exist out there are exciting and inviting and will provide a lot of opportunity to think about things in new ways. What will this new thing even look like? Will it still be called a website, or would it be more like a departmental portal or a worksite? What are you all are doing in this space within your own organizations? What’s working or not working?

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I will be posting additional articles on this topic of better websites and peeling that onion a little more to investigate options on how to make this possible. So, stay tuned and feel free to chime in on what you think the future looks like…