{"id":486,"date":"2018-08-29T03:50:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T03:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/measuringu.com\/usgov-ux\/"},"modified":"2022-03-21T17:47:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T23:47:53","slug":"usgov-ux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/usgov-ux\/","title":{"rendered":"The User Experience of U.S. Government Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>What forms do I need to file my taxes this year?<\/p>\n How much is a National Park Pass?<\/p>\n How do I renew my passport?<\/p>\n Federal government websites are helpful for a wide variety of activities, from mailing a package to booking a camping site to filing taxes.<\/p>\n Many federal branches have begun to computerize their services to streamline these tasks. But with the proliferation of websites for different department and functions of the federal government comes confusion on where to go to find information and how to complete common tasks.<\/p>\n To understand the online experience of federal government websites, we benchmarked the desktop user experience of a selection of U.S. government websites:<\/p>\n We collected SUPR-Q<\/a> data, including NPS data<\/a>, and investigated visitors\u2019 reasons for using the site, website attitudes, understanding of key features, and ability to complete tasks on each of the websites. Full details are available in the downloadable report<\/a>.<\/p>\n We recruited 402 participants in February 2018 for a perception and usability study to test the federal government sites.<\/strong> For the perception portion, we asked 252 users to reflect on their most recent experience on each of the federal government sites. Participants in the studies answered the 8-item SUPR-Q (including the Net Promoter Score) and questions about their prior experience. In particular, we were interested in current users\u2019 attitudes toward the site, and whether they felt the information was complete and easy to find.<\/p>\n For the usability portion, we asked 150 participants to complete a task on one of the five federal government websites:<\/p>\n Participants also answered the 8-item SUPR-Q (including the Net Promoter Score) and questions about their experience completing the tasks on the website.<\/p>\n The SUPR-Q<\/a> is a standardized measure of the quality of a website\u2019s user experience and is a good way to gauge users\u2019 attitudes. It\u2019s based on a rolling database of around 150 websites across dozens of industries. Scores are percentile ranks and tell you how a website experience ranks relative to the other websites. The SUPR-Q provides an overall score as well as detailed scores for subdimensions of trust, usability, appearance, and loyalty.<\/p>\n For the perception study, the scores for the five federal government websites range from a bit below average to well above average.<\/strong> The federal government desktop average SUPR-Q is at the 67th<\/sup>\u00a0percentile (scoring better than 67% of the websites in the database). The IRS website has the lowest SUPR-Q score of the group with a score at the 41st<\/sup>\u00a0percentile. The National Park Service website leads the group with scores at the 96th<\/sup>\u00a0percentile.<\/p>\n In the usability study, the National Park Service website also has the highest overall SUPR-Q score of the group (at the 99th<\/sup>\u00a0percentile)<\/strong> compared to IRS.gov that has the lowest at the 71st<\/sup>\u00a0percentile.<\/p>\n For the usability of the federal government sites, the IRS website has the lowest scores of the group (at the 26th<\/sup>\u00a0percentile in the perception study and at the 63rd<\/sup>\u00a0percentile in the usability study). Compared to the National Park Service that has the highest usability scores for both the perception and usability studies (92% and 99% respectively).<\/p>\n This year, federal government websites have average Net Promoter Scores at about 8% in the perception study and 21% in the usability study.<\/strong> Likelihood to recommend the federal government websites was higher after users had completed a task on the website. The scores are surprisingly high, especially compared to health insurance<\/a>, social media<\/a>, and state government<\/a> websites.<\/p>\n To make the most of limited federal budgets, these organizations should understand what tasks are most important to users online and optimize for them. Consequently, we asked participants what they were attempting to do on their last visit to the website and how often they visited in the last year.<\/p>\n For IRS.gov, 59% of participants reported visiting the site a few times per year. 35% of NASA respondents come to the website a few times per year, but more than a quarter of them (29%) come to the site a few times per month. 54% of National Park Service website users visit a few times a year. Similarly, 50% of USA.gov respondents visit the site a few times per year, but a quarter of them visit a few times per month. 31% of USPS users come to the site a few times per month.<\/p>\n\n The federal government websites have such diverse functions that the reasons for participants\u2019 last visit were quite different across the sites. For example, the most common reasons to visit the IRS website was to look up tax information (25%) and download forms (14%).<\/p>\n While for NASA it was to look up mission updates (16%) and find information about planets (15%).<\/p>\n 19% of participants go to the National Park Service website to learn about visiting a park (e.g. driving directions, closures, etc.) and 18% were looking for a local state park.<\/p>\n Almost a quarter of USA.gov participants went to the site to apply for a job (23%) and 13% went to find passport information.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, 39% of USPS participants came to the site to track a package and 11% came to estimate a shipping price.<\/p>\n With such diverse functions, it\u2019s not surprising that understanding what the website can be used to accomplish is a key driver of federal government website user experience. Basically, users need to know what they can and should do with the site, and if that\u2019s unclear, then the website user experience suffers. The statement, \u201cIt was clear to me what I would be able to use the website to accomplish\u201d<\/em> explains 18% of the variance in SUPR-Q scores.<\/p>\n USA.gov and the IRS are the lowest scorers in the group with only 70% of participants agreeing with the statement \u201cIt was clear to me what I would be able to use this website to accomplish.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The other three sites\u2014National Park Service, NASA, and USPS\u2014had much clearer use cases to participants. Their agreement with the statement, \u201cIt was clear to me what I would be able to use this website to accomplish\u201d<\/em> is much higher, 96%, 75%, and 83% respectively, with NASA on the lower side.<\/p>\n In addition to having the lowest SUPR-Q and NPS scores in both the perception and usability studies, USA.gov also had the lowest task success rate<\/strong> with less than half (47%) of participants successfully finding the correct information about passport eligibility.<\/p>\n The main reason the site suffered was ambiguous category labels that caused confusion about the correct path for finding the passport renewal information. For example, the categories \u201cRecreation and Travel within the U.S.,\u201d \u201cVisas, Tourists, and Temporary Visitors,\u201d and \u201cU.S. Citizens Traveling Abroad\u201d<\/em> were lengthy and didn’t stand out as an obvious path for participants.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the top reason for disliking the website in the perception study was too much information making the experience overwhelming.<\/p>\n With the huge variety of information necessary to cover on a website like USA.gov, it\u2019s important that the category labels are clear and provide an obvious path for users looking for specific types of information.<\/p>\n Looking at the heat map<\/a> from MUIQ<\/a> for the USA.gov homepage, it\u2019s evident that the path for finding passport renewal eligibility information was not obvious to participants.<\/p>\n\n
Study Details<\/h2>\n
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Quality of the Federal Government Website User Experience: SUPR-Q<\/h2>\n
Usability Scores<\/h3>\n
Loyalty\/Net Promoter Scores<\/h3>\n
Why People Use Federal Government Sites<\/h2>\n
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\n\t Federal government website<\/strong><\/th> Visit a few times a month<\/strong><\/th> Visit a few times in the past year<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n\n \n\t IRS<\/td> 8%<\/td> 59%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t NASA<\/td> 29%<\/td> 35%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t National Park Service<\/td> 19%<\/td> 54%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t USA.gov<\/td> 25%<\/td> 50%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t USPS<\/td> 31%<\/td> 44%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n \n
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Understanding What the Website Can Do<\/h3>\n
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Overwhelming Information Not Organized Clearly<\/h3>\n
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