GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
By David Raths
City websites still leave much to be desired, according to a new study.
Civic website developer OpenCities conducted a benchmarking study of websites of the 3,035 U.S. municipalities with populations of more than 10,000 citizens — and found they still lag considerably behind their commercial counterparts.
The study found that 32 percent have poor optimization for mobile or tablet devices; 87 percent received a failing grade for encryption; 40 percent failed accessibility tests, and fewer than 9 percent are written at a reading level that average Americans can comfortably grasp.
Jack Madans, one of the co-authors of Building Better City Websites, is a former product growth lead at Code for America, and is the new managing director of the U.S. office of OpenCities, which handles 20 percent of Australian local government websites.
“The report is our first foray into this space to understand where government websites are lagging behind commercial online sites,” he told Government Technology. “We found that there was a significant need in the market for website redesign and a set of tools to make those websites more mobile-first, user-centered and services-oriented.”
Continue reading the story on the Government Technology website.