US vs Taiwan Digital Services

To demonstrate the navigability of the site, I have mapped out the website’s Life Events function:

In just this one aspect of the website, there is a tremendous amount of information and tools available, organized in an easy to navigate structure.

In each of the above pages, there are links to online government services and educational resources, from scholarship applications to business courses to organ donation consent forms.

MyData

The government site also contains a platform called MyData that provides citizens three services:

• After verifying their identity, Taiwanese citizens can download and use personal data stored by government agencies, such as home or vehicle ownership registration, insurance status, personal income data, and their own national ID photograph.

• Instead of carrying relevant documents and materials to physical locations, citizens can download personal data through MyData and generate a corresponding barcode, then deliver the barcode to the counter staff, who can access the downloaded personal data.

• After downloading personal data, citizens can agree to send that data to other public or private institutions for personalized services. For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, users could view their medical information and log their illness symptoms, thereby allowing them and medical staff to get a holistic picture of their health while strengthening the national response to Covid-19.

e-Participation

Lastly, an additional government-operated web service called e-Participation allows Taiwanese citizens to discuss and advise on policy issues during the drafting and implementation stages of legislation. Within the platform there are four sections:

• Talk – A discussion section for citizens to ask about policies being created

• Supervise – A section where citizens can keep tabs on major government policies and programs

• Propose - A proposal section that invites citizens to submit new policy ideas

• Contact - A feedback section where the public can send emails directly to the heads of government agencies

Reflection

I think that there are 3 things about these services that make them exceptionally effective:

• Clear and satisfying design and user experience that makes engaging with these services easy and encourages their use.

• A level of trust between citizens and their government.

• An open line of communication between citizens and the government that allows for legitimate discussion and open dialogue that encourages critical thinking, citizen participation, and increased trust in the government.

USA - Digital Government Services

USAGov

Upon accessing the US government URL, www.usa.gov, citizens are met with a slightly more cluttered and overwhelming user interface compared to the Taiwanese site. The homepage has a beginning section for frequently used functions, followed by 17 categories of services/resources to choose from, ranked in alphabetical order:

Within each of the above 17 service categories, you can usually find several topics that are technically related to the chosen service but are relatively unrelated to each other, which may make navigation confusing and tiresome. A site map for this website would be a massive spider web of information, as opposed to the compact map for the Taiwanese site. 

Initial Research

If I worked with the team responsible for usa.gov I would ideally have access to internal stakeholders and team members to collaborate with, which would be an extremely valuable asset for discovering new insights and generating ideas.

I would also collect and analyze metrics that measured the utilization of certain features within the app, which could help identify areas of opportunity. For example, website metrics, such as page visits, document downloads, and webform interactions. It is often the case that a small portion of pages on a website generate the majority of traffic, and it would be worth finding which pages those are and understanding what makes them so popular. This would allow us to improve content, accessibility, webpage performance, and interactive features.

I would also be interested in researching why and how visitors use the website by watching them navigate the content or perform specific tasks. Given that this is a complicated website with a lot of information, I might perform user research methods like usability testing, card sorting, and tree testing to improve the design and structure of the site.

There is also a lot of educational content on usa.gov, which is an aspect of the site that I would like to do significant user testing on. This would be with the specific goal of understanding how to improve the educational resources that are presented on the site. This might be an opportunity for user surveys or interviews in order to discover improvements for the quality of education being provided.

Brainstorming Solutions

Ideally I would have gathered a significant amount of feedback and additional perspectives from the above research. However, given that I am working in isolation, I have laid out a series of proposals that address many of the problems and improvement areas that I identified. This is all very high-level and underdeveloped but works as a good starting point:

• Improved Website Layout: In an article written by former Director of Digital Strategy at the White House, there were nearly 2,000 separate top-level .gov domains in 2011. Needless to say, many are redundant, overly specific, or unnecessary, which potentially makes accessing any .gov domain for information a wild goose chase. One potential solution to this is:

  • Block any additional .gov domains from being made unless formally waived after evaluation

  • Map out all existing domains and identify ones that are deemed unnecessary. Migrate or delete these sites completely.

  • Moving forward, develop a strict government-wide policy for websites. Even better is the development of an official design system for all .gov sites.

• Improved Page Design: There is certainly a lot of information that is accessible through these sites, and the design is admittedly not terrible, but it definitely needs improvement. As stated in the research section, the UX/UI is one area I would like to do significant user testing on. However, the US site should consider incorporating design elements as seen in the main Taiwanese government portal: Excellent use of visuals, pages mostly organized by life stage as opposed to specific category, limited use of bulky text, etc.

• Education platform:  One aspect of the website that I like but still want to improve upon is the education element, which I think is a very important responsibility of the government. Given the research in the previous section, I would like to see the US sites invest effort into creating infographics, videos, and potentially courses to educate curious individuals on important details about the function of the government and current issues. This may include separating out the educational content from resources on the site.

• Digital Documentation: As seen with Taiwan, it is essential for the US (and other democracies) to invest in the IT infrastructure of their government services, in part because it can lead to the digitization and distribution of important documents. This in turn can lead to increased speed and appropriate utilization of government services, as well as improved faith in the government by its citizens.

• Discussion Platform: Lastly, I would propose a government platform for citizens to discuss policies and communicate with legislators and government officials. While contact information for representatives is available online, this is not exactly a widely used resource as there is no feedback and little confidence in those who want to voice their opinion. I think a platform very similar to Taiwan’s e-Participation would be a great starting point, which I will reiterate here:

  • Talk – A discussion section for citizens to ask about policies being created

  • Supervise – A section where citizens can keep tabs on major government policies and programs

  • Propose - A proposal section that invites citizens to submit new policy ideas

  • Contact - A feedback section where the public can send emails directly to the heads of government agencies