Tax site survey incorrect

Customer experience analysis firm WebCriteria Inc. said Tuesday that its

recent study rating the accessibility of states' online tax filing services

was wrong.

A clerical error apparently resulted in the reversal of the 2001 data

with data from 2000. States cited as most improved were, in fact, the least

improved. Those states shown as having the worst improvements were really

the most improved.

"The teams behind state government Web sites face unique challenges,

including budgetary constraints and a required degree of accuracy that surpasses

much of the content on the Web," WebCriteria data analyst Jonathan Moore

said. "Those who have gone the extra mile and made their sites easy to use

deserve special recognition, a fact that makes this error particularly unfortunate."

"We were thoroughly mystified at the notion that we had done worse than

the year before," said Kay Dinolfo, Webmaster for Missouri's revamped site,

which had ranked among the third worst under the faulty data. "I knew we

had done some really great things to make our site more usable, more friendly

and more accessible."

Moore offered his "sincerest apologies to all the Web site administrators

whose efforts were misrepresented by this data."