O-Gov May Muck Up Agency Sites

Americans' satisfaction with online government services is slipping, according to the latest report from the quarterly e-government American Customer Satisfaction Index. Agencies during the second quarter received an aggregate score of 74.7 on a 100-point scale, down slightly from the first quarter's score of 75.1.

The report's authors attribute the dip to dissatisfaction with agency homepages, in particular. Departments' main sites have declined in performance for the past three consecutive quarters. It is possible that the president's open government agenda, which required homepages to incorporate more interactive features and subsections, made it harder for users to navigate the sites.

"The challenge is that there are so many different reasons people visit any agency or department website, and it can be hard to direct people to the information they are looking for," said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results, a market research firm that conducted the study in partnership with ACSI. ACSI is a performance rating system used in the public and private sectors.

The changes may increase satisfaction in the long run, but initially there can be a slight dip in satisfaction as visitors grow accustomed to the modifications, the authors said.

Still, this year's second quarter results are higher than last year's score at this time, which was 73.6.