A Look at Agency Stimulus Tracking

We'd like to know what you think. Read on.

The Obama administration has called for agencies to track and report to the public how they spend the hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus funds Congress gave them. Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag sent a memo to agencies on Feb. 18 outlining how they should do this. Included in the guidance were instructions on setting up a page on the agencies' Web site to report to the public how the agency is spending the money and the results it has achieved from the spending. Recovery.gov posted a list of the agencies that have developed a tracking site. (Some have yet to do so.)

A quick scan of the stimulus tracking sites shows that most agencies like to use text - a lot of text - to present information. That makes navigating a bit tedious. But some departments, like the Health and Human Services Department, looks to have put a bit more effort into designing their site, using graphics and thinking about how to package content. Some agencies chose a much simpler interface (which Web designers always recommend) such as the one developed by the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes it easy to find your way around.

Of course, to be fair, agencies built these pages quickly, and they've only begun to get their arms around how to do this. The sites should evolve as agencies become more familiar with the information they want to highlight and what makes the best presentation. But for the public's sake, let's hope agencies don't use the sites as a data dump, in which raw information is simply posted without any thought to organization, search or providing an intuitive interface. That will take some thought.

So, what do think? How should agencies design these sites and how should they package content so that it meets the transparency objective President Obama has called for. Look through the list, and offer your suggestions by submitting a comment.